The table of contents plays a critical role in enhancing the readability and navigability of a document. It provides readers with a clear overview of the document's structure and enables them to quickly locate and access specific sections or information they are interested in. This can be especially valuable for longer documents, such as reports, books, or academic papers, where readers may need to refer back to specific sections or chapters multiple times. In this article, we'll explore how to create a table of contents in a PDF document in C# and VB.NET using Spire.PDF for .NET.
Install Spire.PDF for .NET
To begin with, you need to add the DLL files included in the Spire.PDF for.NET package as references in your .NET project. The DLL files can be either downloaded from this link or installed via NuGet.
PM> Install-Package Spire.PDF
Create a Table of Contents in PDF in C# and VB.NET
A table of contents mainly includes the TOC title (e.g. Table of Contents), TOC content, page numbers, and actions that will take you to the target pages when clicked on. To create a table of contents in PDF using Spire.PDF for .NET, you can follow these steps:
- Initialize an instance of the PdfDocument class.
- Load a PDF document using PdfDocument.LoadFromFile() method.
- Get the page count of the document using PdfDocument.Pages.Count property.
- Insert a new page into the PDF document as the first page using PdfDocument.Pages.Insert(0) method.
- Draw the TOC title, TOC content, and page numbers on the page using PdfPageBase.Canvas.DrawString() method.
- Create actions using PdfActionAnnotation class and add the actions to the page using PdfNewPage.Annotations.Add() method.
- Save the result document using PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.
- C#
- VB.NET
using Spire.Pdf;
using Spire.Pdf.Actions;
using Spire.Pdf.Annotations;
using Spire.Pdf.General;
using Spire.Pdf.Graphics;
using System;
using System.Drawing;
namespace TableOfContents
{
internal class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//Initialize an instance of the PdfDocument class
PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument();
//Load a PDF document
doc.LoadFromFile("Sample.PDF");
//Get the page count of the document
int pageCount = doc.Pages.Count;
//Insert a new page into the pdf document as the first page
PdfPageBase tocPage = doc.Pages.Insert(0);
//Draw TOC title on the new page
string title = "Table of Contents";
PdfTrueTypeFont titleFont = new PdfTrueTypeFont(new Font("Arial", 20, FontStyle.Bold));
PdfStringFormat centerAlignment = new PdfStringFormat(PdfTextAlignment.Center, PdfVerticalAlignment.Middle);
PointF location = new PointF(tocPage.Canvas.ClientSize.Width / 2, titleFont.MeasureString(title).Height + 10);
tocPage.Canvas.DrawString(title, titleFont, PdfBrushes.CornflowerBlue, location, centerAlignment);
//Draw TOC content on the new page
PdfTrueTypeFont titlesFont = new PdfTrueTypeFont(new Font("Arial", 14));
String[] titles = new String[pageCount];
for (int i = 0; i < titles.Length; i++)
{
titles[i] = string.Format("This is page {0}", i + 1);
}
float y = titleFont.MeasureString(title).Height + 10;
float x = 0;
//Draw page numbers of the target pages on the new page
for (int i = 1; i <= pageCount; i++)
{
string text = titles[i - 1];
SizeF titleSize = titlesFont.MeasureString(text);
PdfPageBase navigatedPage = doc.Pages[i];
string pageNumText = (i + 1).ToString();
SizeF pageNumTextSize = titlesFont.MeasureString(pageNumText);
tocPage.Canvas.DrawString(text, titlesFont, PdfBrushes.CadetBlue, 0, y);
float dotLocation = titleSize.Width + 2 + x;
float pageNumlocation = tocPage.Canvas.ClientSize.Width - pageNumTextSize.Width;
for (float j = dotLocation; j < pageNumlocation; j++)
{
if (dotLocation >= pageNumlocation)
{
break;
}
tocPage.Canvas.DrawString(".", titlesFont, PdfBrushes.Gray, dotLocation, y);
dotLocation += 3;
}
tocPage.Canvas.DrawString(pageNumText, titlesFont, PdfBrushes.CadetBlue, pageNumlocation, y);
//Add actions that will take you to the target pages when clicked on to the new page
location = new PointF(0, y);
RectangleF titleBounds = new RectangleF(location, new SizeF(tocPage.Canvas.ClientSize.Width, titleSize.Height));
PdfDestination Dest = new PdfDestination(navigatedPage, new PointF(-doc.PageSettings.Margins.Top, -doc.PageSettings.Margins.Left));
PdfActionAnnotation action = new PdfActionAnnotation(titleBounds, new PdfGoToAction(Dest));
action.Border = new PdfAnnotationBorder(0);
(tocPage as PdfNewPage).Annotations.Add(action);
y += titleSize.Height + 10;
}
//Save the result pdf document
doc.SaveToFile("AddTableOfContents.pdf");
doc.Close();
}
}
}
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