Windows Forms: How to Export DataTable to PDF in C#

Dragging DataGridView, Button from your Visual Studio toolbox into your form designer, then design a simple UI allows you to export data from DataTable to PDF file in c# as shown below.

Export datatable to pdf in c# windows application

Adding a bindingsource to your DataGridView to retrieve data from customer table in the Northwind database.

private void frmExportDataTableToPdf_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // TODO: This line of code loads data into the 'appData.Customers' table. You can move, or remove it, as needed.
    this.customersTableAdapter.Fill(this.appData.Customers);
}

Export to pdf in c# using itextsharp

Right-clicking on your project, then select Manage Nuget Packages from your Visual Studio.

Next, Search 'iTextSharp', then download and install it.

iTextSharp is an open source library helps you to handle pdf file.

Adding a click event handler to the Export button allows you to export datatable to pdf file in c#.

private void btnExportData_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    using (SaveFileDialog sfd = new SaveFileDialog() { Filter = "PDF files|*.pdf" })
    {
        if (sfd.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
        {
            try
            {
                Document doc = new Document(iTextSharp.text.PageSize.A4, 10, 10, 42, 35);
                PdfWriter pdfWriter = PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, new FileStream(sfd.FileName, FileMode.Create));
                doc.Open();
                PdfContentByte pdfContent = pdfWriter.DirectContent;
                iTextSharp.text.Rectangle rectangle = new iTextSharp.text.Rectangle(doc.PageSize);
                //customized border sizes
                rectangle.Left += doc.LeftMargin - 5;
                rectangle.Right -= doc.RightMargin - 5;
                rectangle.Top -= doc.TopMargin - 5;
                rectangle.Bottom += doc.BottomMargin - 5;
                pdfContent.SetColorStroke(BaseColor.WHITE);//setting the color of the border to white
                pdfContent.Rectangle(rectangle.Left, rectangle.Bottom, rectangle.Width, rectangle.Height);
                pdfContent.Stroke();
                //setting font type, font size and font color
                iTextSharp.text.Font headerFont = iTextSharp.text.FontFactory.GetFont(FontFactory.TIMES_ROMAN, 25, BaseColor.LIGHT_GRAY);
                Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
                p.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_CENTER;//adjust the alignment of the heading
                p.Add(new Chunk("Customers", headerFont));//adding a heading to the PDF
                doc.Add(p);//adding component to the document
                iTextSharp.text.Font font = iTextSharp.text.FontFactory.GetFont(FontFactory.TIMES_ROMAN, 12, BaseColor.LIGHT_GRAY);
                //creating pdf table
                PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(dataGridView1.Columns.Count);
                for (int j = 0; j < dataGridView.Columns.Count; j++)
                {
                    PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell(); //create object from the pdfpcell
                    cell.BackgroundColor = BaseColor.WHITE;//set color of cells
                    cell.AddElement(new Chunk(dataGridView.Columns[j].HeaderText.ToUpper(), font));
                    table.AddCell(cell);
                }
                //adding rows from gridview to table
                for (int i = 0; i < dataGridView.Rows.Count; i++)
                {
                    table.WidthPercentage = 100;//set width of the table
                    for (int j = 0; k < dataGridView.Columns.Count; j++)
                    {
                        if (dataGridView1[j, i].Value != null)
                            table.AddCell(new Phrase(dataGridView[j, i].Value.ToString()));
                    }
                }
                //adding table to document
                doc.Add(table);
                doc.Close();
                MessageBox.Show("You have successfully exported the file.", "Message", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Message", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
            }
        }
    }
}

Through c# example, I showed you how to create a pdf file with itextsharp in c#, then write data from datatable into pdf file using itextsharp in c# windows forms application.