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Thursday, 11 August 2022 07:25

C#/VB.NET: Create Lists in PDF Documents

A list is a collection of related values written one after another. Lists are the best tool to make important information stand out on the page, show the steps in a process, or present an overview to the readers. In this article, you will learn how to create ordered or unordered lists in a PDF document in C# and VB.NET using Spire.PDF for .NET.

Create an Ordered List in PDF
Create an Unordered List with Symbol Bullets in PDF
Create an Unordered List with Image Bullets in PDF
Create a Nested Numbered List in PDF

Spire.PDF provides the PdfSortedList class and the PdfList class to represent the ordered lists and unordered lists, respectively. To set the list's content, indent, font, marker style and other attributes, use the methods, properties, or events under these two classes. The following table lists some of the core items involved in this tutorial.

Member	Description
PdfSortedList class	Represents an ordered list in a PDF document.
PdfList class	Represents an unordered list in a PDF document.
Brush property	Gets or sets a list's brush.
Font property	Gets or sets a list's font.
Indent property	Gets or sets a list's indent.
TextIndent property	Gets or sets the indent from the marker to the list item text.
Items property	Gets items of a list.
Marker property	Gets or sets the marker of a list.
Draw() method	Draw list on the canvas of a page at the specified location.
PdfOrderedMarker class	Represents the marker style of an ordered list, such as numbers, letters, and roman numerals.
PdfMarker class	Represents bullet style for an unordered list.

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.

Package Manager

PM> Install-Package Spire.PDF

Create an Ordered List in PDF

An ordered list is a container which holds a sequence of objects. Each item in the list is marked with a number, a letter, or a roman numeral. The following are the step to create an ordered list in PDF using Spire.PDF for .NET.

Create a PdfDocument object.
Add a page to it using PdfDocument.Pages.Add() method.
Create PdfBrush and PdfFont objects for the list.
Create a PdfOrderedMarker object, specifying the marker style.
Specify the list content with a string, and create an object of PdfSortedList class based on the string.
Set the font, indent, brush and marker of the list though the properties under the PdfSortedList object.
Draw the list on the page at the specified location using PdfSortedList.Draw() method.
Save the document to another file using PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.

C#
VB.NET

using System;
using Spire.Pdf;
using Spire.Pdf.Graphics;
using Spire.Pdf.Lists;

namespace CreateOrderedList
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Create a PdfDocument object
            PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument();

            //Set the margins
            PdfMargins margins = new PdfMargins(30);

            //Add a page
            PdfPageBase page = doc.Pages.Add(PdfPageSize.A4, margins);

            //Create a brush
            PdfBrush brush = PdfBrushes.Black;

            //Create fonts
            PdfFont titleFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Bold);
            PdfFont listFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Regular);

            //Create a maker for ordered list
            PdfOrderedMarker marker = new PdfOrderedMarker(PdfNumberStyle.LowerLatin, listFont);

            //Specify the initial coordinate
            float x = 10;
            float y = 20;

            //Draw title
            String title = "Required Web Development Skills:";
            page.Canvas.DrawString(title, titleFont, brush, x, y);
            y = y + (float)titleFont.MeasureString(title).Height;
            y = y + 5;


            //Create a numbered list
            String listContent = "Command-line Unix\n"
                + "Vim\n"
                + "HTML\n"
                + "CSS\n"
                + "Python\n"
                + "JavaScript\n"
                + "SQL";
            PdfSortedList list = new PdfSortedList(listContent);

            //Set the font, indent, text indent, brush of the list
            list.Font = listFont;
            list.Indent = 2;
            list.TextIndent = 4;
            list.Brush = brush;
            list.Marker = marker;

            //Draw list on the page at the specified location
            list.Draw(page, x, y);

            //Save to file
            doc.SaveToFile("OrderedList.pdf");
        }
    }
}

C#/VB.NET: Create Lists in PDF Documents

Create an Unordered List with Symbol Bullets in PDF

An unordered list, also named bulleted list, is a collection of related items that have no special order or sequence. Each item in the list is marked with a bullet. The following are the step to create an unordered list in PDF using Spire.PDF for .NET.

Create a PdfDocument object.
Add a page to it using PdfDocument.Pages.Add() method.
Create PdfBrush and PdfFont objects for the list.
Create a PdfMarker object, specifying the marker style.
Specify the list content with a string, and create an object of PdfList class based on the string.
Set the font, indent, brush and marker of the list though the properties under the PdfList object.
Draw the list on the page at the specified location using PdfList.Draw() method.
Save the document to another file using PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.

C#
VB.NET

using Spire.Pdf;
using Spire.Pdf.Graphics;
using Spire.Pdf.Lists;
using System;

namespace CreateBulletedList
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Create a PdfDocument object
            PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument();

            //Set the margin
            PdfMargins margin = new PdfMargins(30);

            //Add a page
            PdfPageBase page = doc.Pages.Add(PdfPageSize.A4, margin);

            //Create fonts
            PdfFont titleFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Bold);
            PdfFont listFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Regular);
            PdfFont markerFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 6f, PdfFontStyle.Regular);

            //Create a brush
            PdfBrush brush = PdfBrushes.Black;

            //Specify the initial coordinate
            float x = 10;
            float y = 20;

            //Draw title
            String title = "Computer Science Subjects:";
            page.Canvas.DrawString(title, titleFont, brush, x, y);
            y = y + (float)titleFont.MeasureString(title).Height;
            y = y + 5;

            //Specify the marker style
            PdfMarker marker = new PdfMarker(PdfUnorderedMarkerStyle.Asterisk);
            marker.Font = markerFont;

            //Create an unordered list
            String listContent = "Data Structure\n"
                    + "Algorithm\n"
                    + "Computer Networks\n"
                    + "Operating System\n"
                    + "Theory of Computations\n"
                    + "C Programming\n"
                    +"Computer Organization and Architecture"; 

            PdfList list = new PdfList(listContent);

            //Set the font, indent, text indent, brush, maker of the list
            list.Font = listFont;
            list.Indent = 2;
            list.TextIndent = 4;
            list.Brush = brush;
            list.Marker = marker;

            //Draw list on a page at the specified location
            list.Draw(page, x, y);

            //Save to file
            doc.SaveToFile("UnorderedList.pdf");
        }
    }
}

C#/VB.NET: Create Lists in PDF Documents

Create an Unordered List with Image Bullets in PDF

In addition to symbols, the bullet points of an unordered list can be also a picture. The steps to create an unordered list with images bullets are as follows.

Create a PdfDocument object.
Add a page to it using PdfDocument.Pages.Add() method.
Create PdfBrush and PdfFont objects for the list.
Create a PdfMarker object, setting the marker style as CustomImage.
Set an image as the mark through PdfMarker.Image property.
Specify the list content with a string, and create an object of PdfList class based on the string.
Set the font, indent, brush and marker of the list though the properties under the PdfList object.
Draw the list on the page at the specified location using PdfList.Draw() method.
Save the document to another file using PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.

C#
VB.NET

using System;
using Spire.Pdf;
using Spire.Pdf.Graphics;
using Spire.Pdf.Lists;

namespace CustomizeBulletPointsWithImage
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Create a PdfDocument object
            PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument();

            //Set the margin
            PdfMargins margin = new PdfMargins(30);

            //Add a page
            PdfPageBase page = doc.Pages.Add(PdfPageSize.A4, margin);

            //Create fonts
            PdfFont titleFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Bold);
            PdfFont listFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Regular);

            //Create a brush
            PdfBrush brush = PdfBrushes.Black;

            //Specify the initial coordinate
            float x = 10;
            float y = 20;

            //Draw title
            String title = "Project Task To-Do List:";
            page.Canvas.DrawString(title, titleFont, brush, x, y);
            y = y + (float)titleFont.MeasureString(title).Height;
            y = y + 5;

            //Specify the marker style to image
            PdfMarker marker = new PdfMarker(PdfUnorderedMarkerStyle.CustomImage);

            //Set the image for the marker
            marker.Image = PdfImage.FromFile(@"C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\checkmark.jpg");

            //Create an unordered list
            String listContent = "Define projects and tasks you're working on\n"
                    + "Assign people to tasks\n"
                    + "Define the priority levels of your tasks\n"
                    + "Keep track of the progress status of your tasks\n"
                    + "Mark tasks as done when completed";
            PdfList list = new PdfList(listContent);

            //Set the font, indent, text indent, brush, maker of the list
            list.Font = listFont;
            list.Indent = 2;
            list.TextIndent = 4;
            list.Brush = brush;
            list.Marker = marker;

            //Draw list on a page at the specified location
            list.Draw(page, x, y);

            //Save to file
            doc.SaveToFile("ImageBullets.pdf");
        }
    }
}

C#/VB.NET: Create Lists in PDF Documents

Create a Nested Numbered List in PDF

A nested list is a list that contains at least one sub list. Nested lists are used to present data in hierarchical structures. The following are the steps to create a nested numbered list in PDF using Spire.PDF for .NET.

Create a PdfDocument object.
Add a page to it using PdfDocument.Pages.Add() method.
Create a PdfOrderedMarker object, specifying the marker style as Numeric.
Specify the list content with a string, and create a parent list based on the string. And then set the font, indent, brush and marker of the list though the properties under the PdfSortedList object.
Repeat the above step to create sub lists and sub-sub lists.
Get the specific item of the parent list through PdfSortedList.Items[] property, and add a list to it as its sub list through PdfListItem.Sublist property.
Draw the list on the page at the specified location using PdfSortedList.Draw() method.
Save the document to another file using PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.

C#
VB.NET

using System;
using Spire.Pdf;
using Spire.Pdf.Graphics;
using Spire.Pdf.Lists;

namespace CreateMultiLevelLists
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //Create a PdfDocument object
            PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument();

            //Set the margin
            PdfMargins margin = new PdfMargins(30);

            //Add a page
            PdfPageBase page = doc.Pages.Add(PdfPageSize.A4, margin);

            //Specify the initial coordinate
            float x = 10;
            float y = 20;

            //Create two brushes
            PdfBrush blackBrush = PdfBrushes.Black;
            PdfBrush purpleBrush = PdfBrushes.Purple;

            //Create two fonts
            PdfFont titleFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Bold);
            PdfFont listFont = new PdfFont(PdfFontFamily.TimesRoman, 12f, PdfFontStyle.Regular);

            //Create a maker for ordered list
            PdfOrderedMarker marker = new PdfOrderedMarker(PdfNumberStyle.Numeric, listFont);

            //Draw title
            String title = "Below is a Nested Numbered List:";
            page.Canvas.DrawString(title, titleFont, blackBrush, x, y);
            y = y + (float)titleFont.MeasureString(title).Height;
            y = y + 5;

            //Create a parent list
            String parentListContent = "Parent Item 1\n"
                    + "Parent Item 2";
            PdfSortedList parentList = new PdfSortedList(parentListContent);
            parentList.Font = listFont;
            parentList.Indent = 2;
            parentList.Brush = purpleBrush;
            parentList.Marker = marker;

            //Create a sub list - "subList_1"
            String subListContent_1 = "Sub Item 1\n"
                    + "Sub Item 2\n"
                    + "Sub Item 3\n"
                    + "Sub Item 4";
            PdfSortedList subList_1 = new PdfSortedList(subListContent_1);
            subList_1.Indent = 12;
            subList_1.Font = listFont;
            subList_1.Brush = blackBrush;
            subList_1.Marker = marker;
            subList_1.MarkerHierarchy = true;

            //Create another sub list -"subList_2"
            String subListContent_2 = "Sub Item 1\n"
                    + "Sub Item 2\n"
                    + "Sub Item 3";
            PdfSortedList subList_2 = new PdfSortedList(subListContent_2);
            subList_2.Indent = 12;
            subList_2.Font = listFont;
            subList_2.Brush = blackBrush;
            subList_2.Marker = marker;
            subList_2.MarkerHierarchy = true;

            //Create a sub-sub list - "subList_1"
            String subSubListContent_1 = "Sub Sub Item 1\n"
                    + "Sub Sub Item 2";
            PdfSortedList subSubList = new PdfSortedList(subSubListContent_1);
            subSubList.Indent = 20;
            subSubList.Font = listFont;
            subSubList.Brush = blackBrush;
            subSubList.Marker = marker;
            subSubList.MarkerHierarchy = true;

            //Set subList_1 as sub list of the first item of parent list
            PdfListItem item_1 = parentList.Items[0];
            item_1.SubList = subList_1;

            //Set subList_2 as sub list of the second item of parent list
            PdfListItem item_2 = parentList.Items[1];
            item_2.SubList = subList_2;

            //Set subSubList as sub list of the first item of subList_1
            PdfListItem item_1_1 = subList_1.Items[0];
            item_1_1.SubList = subSubList;

            //Draw parent list
            parentList.Draw(page, x, y);

            //Save to file
            doc.SaveToFile("MultiLevelList.pdf");
        }
    }
}

C#/VB.NET: Create Lists in PDF Documents

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