Installing iText for .NET

How to install iText .NET version

Thank you for your interest in our open-source PDF library, we hope you will enjoy using our product and share your experiences with us and the iText community. We will walk you through the installation process, from downloading iText Core to adding the dependencies to your .NET build tool.

If you require any extra help please have a look at our FAQs or the community discussion at StackOverflow. If you are interested in getting support from our in-house developers and/or a license key for commercial iText products, you will need to acquire a commercial license.

Before you install (commercial license users only)

Make sure you have purchased a commercial license for iText. All downloads we offer closed-source come with our commercial license model.
If you do not use the "Automated dependency management" method to install iText, you will need to download the proper license key library. You can find the installation guide here.
Important remark: In the installation guide, we use NuGet as a build tool for .NET. - iText

Installation

Automated dependency management

iText Core is available on NuGet. To install the core iText modules, you can install them with a single NuGetPackage by typing the following command in the NuGet Package Manager: Install-Package itext. You will also need to install the Bouncy Castle Adapter, by issuing the following command: Install-Package itext.bouncy-castle-adapter (as the kernel module has it as a dependency).

If you have a trial or a commercial license you will also need the iText license key library. You can install this typing the following command in the NuGet Package Manager: Install-Package itext.licensing.base.

NOTE: This is a required dependency for the closed-source add-ons, so it will automatically be installed when you install an add-on that needs the license key library.

Using sign functionality

All the necessary bouncy-castle related classes are grouped into two modules: bouncy-castle-adapter and bouncy-castle-fips-adapter.

One of these modules is required to be in a classpath for the correct usage of cryptographic and signatures-related logic of our kernel and sign modules.

It is important not to add them both as a dependency since they are not compatible.

itext.bouncy-castle-adapter NuGet package encapsulates bouncy-castle related classes for this NuGet dependency:

BouncyCastle.Cryptography

The itext.bouncy-castle-adapter previously relied upon the Portable.BouncyCastle dependency. However, as of the release of iText version 8.0.2, we transitioned to use the newer BouncyCastle.Cryptography package officially maintained by the Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.

itext.bouncy-castle-fips-adapter NuGet package encapsulates bouncy-castle related classes for these two assemblies (dlls taken from https://www.bouncycastle.org/fips-csharp/):

bc-fips
bcpkix-fips

Since those two dll files are not signed, we can't use them with .NET Framework and therefore the only supported target framework for bouncy-castle-fips-adapter project is netstandard2.0.

You can read more about it here.

Using the iText Artifactory Server

iText NuGet packages are also available on the iText Artifactory server. You can add it as a custom NuGet repository to Visual Studio. In the NuGet Package Manager, go to the settings and add the following URL as a package source: https://repo.itextsupport.com/api/nuget/nuget. You can also browse the iText Artifactory server and download NuGet packages manually.

After Installation

Check out the .NET jump-start tutorial and helpful code examples here on the Knowledge Base, or you can find our API documentation,in the Resources section of our website.

iText Core .NET on GitHub

The source code is available on GitHub.

You can download the modules (.nupkg) of iText Core in a single ZIP file for .NET: iText.

Developers can clone the following git projects to access the source code for .NET: iText.

Installing SNAPSHOT builds

During development we release SNAPSHOT builds which you can install if you require a fix for a specific issue, before it is made available on an official RELEASE. Snapshots can be downloaded from the iText Artifactory and are appended with a -SNAPSHOT suffix.

Our SNAPSHOT builds pass the same quality control as RELEASE versions. We don't introduce breaking changes between minor releases (0.0.x), so the main difference from a RELEASE version is that a SNAPSHOT version will be continually updated and includes all the fixes and improvements introduced since the latest release.

If you’re using NuGet you can add the iText Artifactory as a NuGet packages server for your solution and download the SNAPSHOT version via the NuGet Package Manager.

To do this you need to create a file in the same folder as your solution (.sln) file with the name: "nuget.config". Its content should be as follows:

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <packageSources>
    <add key="iText Artifactory" value="https://repo.itextsupport.com/api/nuget/nuget" />
  </packageSources>
</configuration>

NOTE: If you do not see any snapshots listed, you should configure the NuGet Package Manager to include prerelease versions.

Alternatively you can browse the iText Artifactory if you want to manually download the .nupkg file. You can open this file like a ZIP file to extract the dlls.

NOTE: If you’ve previously installed a SNAPSHOT build you may need to clear your local cache. In NuGet you can run dotnet nuget locals all --clear from the NuGet Package Manager console.

Adding our iText Core add-ons

If you would like to add one of our add-ons, please first have a look at the compatibility matrix and the installation guides of each of these add-ons.