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Built upon Adobe source code used for Acrobat, Datalogics Adobe PDF Library SDK provides stable, reliable code and the flexibility to develop with C# or VB (VB.NET) (interfaces are also available for C and Java). APDFL is the most complete SDK for PDF creation, manipulation and management. Best for enterprise/larger organizations of developers and independent software vendors (ISVs) who need to incorporate Adobe's PDF functionality into their own internal or external applications.

Most of the code samples in APDFL are designed to demonstrate how an API works by completing a simple programming task.

We assume a basic level of technical understanding of the PDF file format, invidual sample category directory markdown files go into more details.

Many of these sample programs automatically generate an output file or set of files. These output files, generally PDF or graphics files (JPG or BMP), are stored in the directory where the application has been run. If you run a sample program a second or third time, it will overwrite any output files that were created and stored earlier. However, if you run a sample program, generate a PDF output file, and then open that PDF file and try to run that sample program again, you will see an error message. The program will not be able to overwrite an existing output file if that file is currently open in another program.

(Note: that the Forms Extension product and samples are available by talking to Datalogics Sales.)

To activate the free trial:

1. Visit https://www.datalogics.com/pdf-sdk-free-trial to obtain an activation key.
2. A prompt will appear on your console when executing Datalogics sample code.

Alternatively, to use an activation key in code, the LicenseKey member of the Library class can be set to a valid activation key prior to instantiating the library.

    Library.LicenseKey = "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"
    Using library As New Library()

Samples can be built and run easily in an IDE such as Visual Studio 2022, Visual Studio 2022 for Mac, or VS Code.

Otherwise, here are instructions for using dotnet instead:

Change to the directory of the program you want to work with. Here is an example:

cd ./Images/RasterizePage

Build a sample project file using the Debug configuration using the dotnet program:

dotnet build -c Debug ./RasterizePage.vbproj

If you want to build for Release, use this command syntax instead:

dotnet build -c Release ./RasterizePage.vbproj

Change to the directory your sample built its executable to:

cd ./bin/Debug/net6.0/

Run the application by specifying the .dll file (Note: the .dll file extension is the .NET executable for all platforms):

dotnet ./RasterizePage.dll

Note: Samples are setup to write their output files to their program's executable directory along with any other dependencies, such as SkiaSharp for Graphics.