Aspose PDF

Jason_Woods · January 20, 2024, 12:32am

I am looking to do some fancy PDF stuff and it looks like the Aspose.Pdf will work. However, without a known license, it will add a watermark. This is for a cloud customer, so there are limitations to what I can add.

Is there a license built into the system that is usable?
Is there simple C# code I can add to a function to merge PDFs? (remember, I can’t add files to the server).
I see there is PdfEdit too, but it adds a watermark too…

ridgea · January 20, 2024, 10:47am

@Jason_Woods , Done a POC with Aspose, it’s a really solid .net suite.

We evaluated whether it would be worth acquiring the licenses directly from them which would resolve the watermarking. I’ll see if I can find the support case on Monday as we asked these sorts of questions also.

The only other solution we liked at which was substantial cheaper was IRONpdf.

Aspose git for the merge pdfs:

gist.github.com

https://gist.github.com/aspose-com-gists/deb84b700e3bb699b5af25f4c10b7e8d

merge-multiple-pdf-files-using-stream.cs

// create PdfFileEditor object
PdfFileEditor pdfEditor = new PdfFileEditor();
// output stream
FileStream outputStream = new FileStream("Merged.pdf", FileMode.Create);
// create array of Streams 
FileStream[] streamArray = new FileStream[3];
streamArray[0] = new FileStream("file1.pdf", FileMode.Open);
streamArray[1] = new FileStream("file2.pdf", FileMode.Open);
streamArray[2] = new FileStream("file3.pdf", FileMode.Open);
// merge files

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merge-multiple-pdf-files.cs

// create PdfFileEditor object
PdfFileEditor pdfEditor = new PdfFileEditor();
// create array of PDF files' paths
string[] filesArray = new string[3];
filesArray[0] = "file1.pdf";
filesArray[1] = "file2.pdf";
filesArray[2] = "file3.pdf";
// merge files
pdfEditor.Concatenate(filesArray, "merged.pdf");

merge-two-pdf-files-using-stream.cs

// create PdfFileEditor object
PdfFileEditor pdfEditor = new PdfFileEditor();
// output stream
FileStream outputStream = new FileStream("Merged.pdf", FileMode.Create);
// input streams
FileStream inputStream1 = new FileStream("file1.pdf", FileMode.Open);
FileStream inputStream2 = new FileStream("file2.pdf", FileMode.Open);
// merge files
pdfEditor.Concatenate(inputStream1, inputStream2, outputStream);

There are more than three files. show original

Jason_Woods · January 20, 2024, 5:14pm

Thanks. I was able to get the output with Aspose and PdfEdit (with a Watermark). I am hoping that the license does not have to be a file because this is a Cloud customer.

ridgea · January 20, 2024, 5:28pm

@Jason_Woods , nice , I think the last discussion my team had on it we reached the same conclusion that we would have to acquire a licence file and put it on the server and if I remember rightly there we some pretty tight ruling s on the usage of the evaluation licence.

I have a a gut feeling it’s the sort of suite they may be leveraging with the dynamic documents module , but I maybe wrong, would be interesting to find out.

Mark_Wonsil · January 20, 2024, 11:19pm

Not sure if any of this would work:

Looks like it will run as an Azure function. You may be able to call it that way.

Jason_Woods · January 21, 2024, 12:24am

An Azure Function would be a good fallback. I could use PDFSharp instead (free). I prefer to keep things as simple as possible, but this may be a problem that takes some “out of the box” thinking…

Mark_Wonsil · January 21, 2024, 2:09pm

Sometimes cloud problems require cloud solutions.

There’s no doubt in my mind you’ll find something that works.

HLalumiere · January 21, 2024, 6:04pm

If I am not mistaken, Kinetic uses the iText (formerly iTextSharp) library already, and as far as I know the older versions were free under LGPL. I think the newer versions are under AGPL license, meaning free for open-source usage, but for commercial use you need a license…

Here is an example of what you can do to PDFs with it: Introduction to PDF Manipulation With iText (Formerly iTextSharp) .

Jason_Woods · January 21, 2024, 10:57pm

I don’t see this assembly as an available Reference. Do you happen to know what the name is?

HLalumiere · January 22, 2024, 2:52am

Nevermind, I was mistaken… 10.2 used PdfPrinting.Net, but now Kinetic appears to be using Aspose…

By digging a little, you should be able to use the license that comes with Kinetic for Aspose… Have a look at a decompilation of Ice.Lib.PDF.dll:

Jason_Woods · January 24, 2024, 9:10pm

This was it! The Ice.Lib.PDF had the license built in, so I was able to do the logic!

ridgea · January 25, 2024, 8:47pm

@Jason_Woods nice work, did you have to set code it to set the licence via stream from the .lic file ? Defo would be interesting seeing the code, if that is okay to ask ?

Jason_Woods · January 25, 2024, 9:06pm

I just copied the raw XML into my code. It isn’t proper programming, but it worked.

DESM · September 22, 2025, 6:33pm

Does that still work now without Reflection, and without being able to use the embedded lib.pdf?

Jason_Woods · September 22, 2025, 6:35pm

I’ve used this many times and no one has said it doesn’t work. I did not use reflection.

DESM · September 22, 2025, 6:42pm

Ok, I see. Could you explain how to actually consume the license?
I added the reference directly in the function from Reference → Assemblies → ICE. Lib.PDF.dll,

but I don’t understand how it’s supposed to be consumed now. Previously, I was doing it like this:

var assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(“Ice.Lib.PDF”);

Jason_Woods · September 22, 2025, 6:50pm

It is just a text file. I loaded the raw text as a string.

DESM · September 22, 2025, 7:01pm

Ok, ok, thank you very much, I think I understand the file content now. I have one more question:
Is that file still available to access, and if so, where can I do that? Or are you referring to the license purchased in Aspose.PDF?

Jason_Woods · September 22, 2025, 7:02pm

If you are a SaaS client, you don’t have access. On Prem does though.

DESM · September 22, 2025, 7:12pm

If it’s a SaaS, should I contact my support and request the file, or wouldn’t that work in this case? I think that’s actually my confusion, right