I've been working with a client on a web app that involves converting some online content into a PDF catalog.

When I was researching this project to quote for it, I wished I had more time to build a decent PDF creating component myself. There's some really low quality, scrappy components out there - most of which I downloaded only to find that out.

The one I decided to go with (should you ever need a similar component) is ceTe's DynamicPDF™ Generator for .NET. If I'm really honest, the biggest selling point for me was that it's the kind of component you can get started with straight away - a few lines and you've got a PDF. That's how they should all be. Sensible defaults, or, as DHH would say, "Convention over configuration".

So I decided to look into this component a bit futher, and discovered 2 other pretty cool points: - It has a free community edition which has loads of features. - It's very easy to use and, so far, has never spent more than 1 second creating the PDF - some of which are 80+ pages!

            document = new Document();

            Page page1 = new Page();

            document.Pages.Add(page1);

page1.Elements.Add(new Label("Testing!", 0, 200, 200, 30,

Font.Helvetica, 16f, TextAlign.Center RgbColor.Purple);

            document.Draw(@"C:\test.pdf");

It's made the job a lot easier and I think we'll be using it for one of SiteVista's new features - but more about that later.