DynamicPDF Designer is a powerful graphical editing tool for creating a DLEX XML specification that, when processed, creates a PDF document. You can also programmatically create a DLEX specification to format a report dynamically. Here, we show how to dynamically create a columnar report.

This post is part two of a two-part blog post. In this post, we programmatically add columns to a DLEX from (almost) scratch.

In the last post (Dynamic Columns and Designer Reports - Part One), we modified an existing DLEX file to remove and move columns in an existing DLEX document. But many times, you might wish to create a DLEX programmatically from scratch. Here, we illustrate making a DLEX file dynamically from a bare-bones DLEX document.

We start with a bare-bones DLEX file, report-with-cover-page.json, and use the DynamicPDF API C# Client library, available on GitHub or as a NuGet package.

• dotnet-client on GitHub
• DynamicPDF.API on NuGet
• client libraries documentation

We use the client library to create a PDF using the pdf endpoint. We also use Microsoft's System.XML namespace.

DynamicPDF Designer is a powerful graphical editing tool for creating a DLEX XML specification that, when processed, creates a PDF document. You can also programmatically modify a DLEX specification to format a report dynamically. Here, we show how to dynamically change a report to remove columns when creating a columnar report.

This is part one of a two-part blog post. In this post we programmatically modify an existing DLEX. In the next post we create that DLEX from scratch.

When using Designer, you might have trouble getting started with producing JSON data to design and test your DLEX document. If you use SQL Server, then an easy way to produce a JSON dataset is by using the for JSON clause in your SQL statement.

Here at DynamicPDF, we have noticed several clients needing help distinguishing if they should use a Subreport rather than a ConditionalHeader or ConditionalFooter. ConditionalHeader elements and ConditionalFooter elements are convenient ways to add top-level information or column headers to a report. However, when you need to display substantial data in a header or footer, often the better choice is to use a Subreport. Here, we create a report illustrating why you might consider using a Subreport rather than a ConditionalHeader or ConditionalFooter.

DynamicPDF API now allows conditionally formatting an element's color using expressions. In the following example we illustrate formatting a simple DLEX Report.

You can expand rows to easily match the height of your content. You can even use Lines and Rectangles to expand with a field's content. Here's how to do it.

One question we get asked here at DynamicPDF is how to use a CSS stylesheet when using the html input with the pdf endpoint to convert HTML to PDF. Here is a simple way to accomplish this task.

The Python client library is now available from PyPi. This client library make it easy to use the DynamicPDF API from your Python based applications.

DynamicPDF CloudAPI Designer now supports Google Fonts, significantly expanding the number of fonts available to you when creating a PDF document.

DynamicPDF API's client libraries greatly simplify adding our endpoints to your applications. But you are not limited to using one of our provided client libraries. Although a Python client library is in the works, using Python to call the Dynamic-PDF API's endpoints is straightforward.

The following three examples demonstrate the ease of using Python to call the dlex-layout, pdf-info, and pdf endpoints.