wkhtmltopdf outputstream & download - diaglog

Question

is it possible to get a pdf stream created by wkhtmltopdf from any html file and popup a download dialog in IE/Firefox/Chrome etc.?

At the moment I get my outputstream by this code:

public class Printer
{
    public static MemoryStream GeneratePdf(StreamReader Html, MemoryStream pdf, Size pageSize)
    {
        Process p;
        StreamWriter stdin;
        ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo();

        psi.FileName =  @"C:\PROGRA~1\WKHTML~1\wkhtmltopdf.exe";

        // run the conversion utility 
        psi.UseShellExecute = false;
        psi.CreateNoWindow = true;
        psi.RedirectStandardInput = true;
        psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        psi.RedirectStandardError = true;

        // note that we tell wkhtmltopdf to be quiet and not run scripts 
        psi.Arguments = "-q -n --disable-smart-shrinking " + (pageSize.IsEmpty ? "" : "--page-width " + pageSize.Width + "mm --page-height " + pageSize.Height + "mm") + " - -";

        p = Process.Start(psi);

        try
        {
            stdin = p.StandardInput;
            stdin.AutoFlush = true;
            stdin.Write(Html.ReadToEnd());
            stdin.Dispose();

            CopyStream(p.StandardOutput.BaseStream, pdf);
            p.StandardOutput.Close();
            pdf.Position = 0;

            p.WaitForExit(10000);

            return pdf;
        }
        catch
        {
            return null;
        }
        finally
        {
            p.Dispose();
        }
    }

    public static void CopyStream(Stream input, Stream output)
    {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[32768];
        int read;
        while ((read = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)
        {
            output.Write(buffer, 0, read);
        }
    }
}

Then I want to display the dialog:

MemoryStream PDF = Printer.GeneratePdf(Rd, PDFStream, Size);

byte[] byteArray1 = PDF.ToArray();
PDF.Flush();
PDF.Close();
Response.BufferOutput = true;

Response.Clear();
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=Test.pdf");
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
Response.BinaryWrite(byteArray1);
Response.End();

With MemoryStreams created from a PDF file this works fine, but here I only get an empty page. The bytearray has 1270 Bytes.

Answer 1

Is this still a problem?

I just created a new ASP.net website to test this on my computer after installing wkhtmltopdf 0.11.0 rc2 and it worked fine creating the PDF. My version was only slightly different;

In my CSHTML I had:

MemoryStream PDFStream = new MemoryStream();
MemoryStream PDF = Derp.GeneratePdf(PDFStream);
byte[] byteArray1 = PDF.ToArray();
PDF.Flush();
PDF.Close();
Response.BufferOutput = true;
Response.Clear();
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=Test.pdf");
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
Response.BinaryWrite(byteArray1);
Response.End();

My Derp class

public class Derp
{
    public static MemoryStream GeneratePdf(MemoryStream pdf)
    {
        using (StreamReader Html = new StreamReader(@"Z:\HTMLPage.htm"))
        {
            Process p;
            StreamWriter stdin;
            ProcessStartInfo psi = new ProcessStartInfo();
            psi.FileName = @"C:\wkhtmltopdf\wkhtmltopdf.exe";
            psi.UseShellExecute = false;
            psi.CreateNoWindow = true;
            psi.RedirectStandardInput = true;
            psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
            psi.RedirectStandardError = true;
            psi.Arguments = "-q -n --disable-smart-shrinking " + " - -";
            p = Process.Start(psi);
            try
            {
                stdin = p.StandardInput;
                stdin.AutoFlush = true;
                stdin.Write(Html.ReadToEnd());
                stdin.Dispose();
                CopyStream(p.StandardOutput.BaseStream, pdf);
                p.StandardOutput.Close();
                pdf.Position = 0;
                p.WaitForExit(10000);
                return pdf;
            }
            catch
            {
                return null;
            }
            finally
            {
                p.Dispose();
            }
        }
    }

    public static void CopyStream(Stream input, Stream output)
    {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[32768];
        int read;
        while ((read = input.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)
        {
            output.Write(buffer, 0, read);
        }
    }
}