Exporting a report to PDF programmatically

Environment

Product

Progress® Telerik® Reporting

Description

This article explains how to export a report to PDF without the need to go through a report viewer.

Solution

For ASP.NET Framework

You can use the following code snippet to programmatically export the report into PDF format from a Web Site or Web Application project:

• C#
• VB.NET

void ExportToPDF(Telerik.Reporting.Report reportToExport)
{
    ReportProcessor reportProcessor = new ReportProcessor();
    Telerik.Reporting.InstanceReportSource instanceReportSource = new Telerik.Reporting.InstanceReportSource();
    instanceReportSource.ReportDocument = reportToExport;
    RenderingResult result = reportProcessor.RenderReport("PDF", instanceReportSource, null);

    string fileName = result.DocumentName + "." + result.Extension;

    Response.Clear();
    Response.ContentType = result.MimeType;
    Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Private);
    Response.Expires = -1;
    Response.Buffer = true;

    Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition",
                    string.Format("{0};FileName=\"{1}\"",
                                    "attachment",
                                    fileName));

    Response.BinaryWrite(result.DocumentBytes);
    Response.End();
}

Sub ExportToPDF(ByVal reportToExport As Telerik.Reporting.Report)

    Dim reportProcessor As New ReportProcessor()
    Dim instanceReportSource As New Telerik.Reporting.InstanceReportSource()
    instanceReportSource.ReportDocument = reportToExport
    Dim result As RenderingResult = reportProcessor.RenderReport("PDF", instanceReportSource, Nothing)

    Dim fileName As String = result.DocumentName + "." + result.Extension 
    Response.Clear()
    Response.ContentType = result.MimeType
    Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Private)
    Response.Expires = -1
    Response.Buffer = True
    Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", String.Format("{0};FileName=""{1}""", "attachment", fileName))   
    Response.BinaryWrite(result.DocumentBytes)
    Response.End()
End Sub

For ASP.NET Core

In ASP.NET Core, the Response object does not expose a BinaryWrite method. For that reason, the approach will need to change a little. We can instead use the document bytes of the result object returned by the RenderReport method to return a FileContentResult:

• C#

        [Route("exportreport")]
        public IActionResult GenerateReportPDF(string reportName)
        {
            ReportProcessor reportProcessor = new ReportProcessor();
            Telerik.Reporting.UriReportSource uriReportSource = new Telerik.Reporting.UriReportSource();
            uriReportSource.Uri = Path.Combine(_environment.ContentRootPath, "Reports", reportName);
            RenderingResult result = reportProcessor.RenderReport("PDF", uriReportSource, null);

            return File(result.DocumentBytes, result.MimeType);
        }

Then, we can make an AJAX request to our controller method to get the rendered report and return it as an attachment using Blobs.

• JS

        function exportReport(reportName) {
            fetch(`/api/sample/exportreport?reportName=${reportName}`)
                 .then(res => {
                     if (res.status === 200) {
                         return res.blob();
                     } else {
                         console.log("Could not retrieve PDF document.");
                     }
                 })
                 .then(blob => {
                    let link = document.createElement('a');
                    let documentName = reportName.slice(0, -4);
                    link.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob);
                    link.download = `${documentName}.pdf`;
                    document.body.appendChild(link);
                    link.click();
                });
        }

Notes

Whether the report will be downloaded or previewed in the browser depends on the browser's PDF document settings, for example:

• PDF Settings on Edge
• PDF Settings on Chrome