This library is a lifesaver. I am working on building a dictionary application for a small company, and I had a requirement to be able to read in a PDF document and inject rich text annotations containing proprietary data from my database. I also had the requirement to convert to and from multiple formats on the fly in my application and perform other manipulations to the documents. I was on a tight timeline and had to get something out the door quickly. I tried to use other products and they were either:
- Very complicated to use (The next best option I found out there took me days to build something, using tons of code, and the results were never quite right)
- Had unacceptable performance (performance was critical, the end-user could not wait for minutes to get the updated document)
- Would take me way too long to implement the functionality I needed with all the bugs and performance issues ironed out, as I needed to get it out the door ASAP
After failing with other solutions for a few days I decided to give the Aspose PDF component a try, and I was able to implement a rock-solid solution in a matter of hours. The library was much easier to use compared to the other options I tried. Annotating was simply a matter of setting a regular expression on a TextFragmentAbsorber, applying the absorber to the document, then annotating the regions returned on the absorber (around 10-20 lines of code to get it working completely). Conversions were even simpler, just a couple lines of code. Performance is great, and it was also much more accurate matching text than the other options I previously tried to cobble together myself. The amount of time it saved me was well worth the price of the license. The end users we also incredibly happy with the result, it made me look like a rock star.
Their support is also great. I had a few questions about the product and their staff was very knowledgeable and promptly answered them. Overall a great experience.
I would highly recommend using this component if you need to handle PDF’s in your .NET application. This will definitely be my go-to solution in future projects. I will most likely have the need to do OCR in the future and am looking forward to using their component for that based on how well this implementation went.