Lifecycle of a document creation - PD

During the creation and output of a document, there are a number of stages that the processing goes through.

Wrapping it up

Using the wrapper methods for PDFDocument.ProcessDocument(output) or the MVC this.PDF(doc) all the stages will be automatically executed and the resulting content rendered to a stream.

It makes the output of a document simple and discreet.

using(var doc = PDFDocument.Parse(path))
{
    doc.ProcessDocument(output);
}

Initialize and Load

The initialize and load method, InitializeAndLoad(), makes sure that the document components are ready. It allows opportunity to set up the defaults, prepare for loading of resources, and perform any start up operation.

After initialization and loading external code should be able to interact and alter the propperties etc.

Data Binding

The data binding stage is important for the creation of any content from a datasource. There is a flag on the document class (see reference/pdf_document) that defines whether databinding should automatically be done during the lifecycle.

By default this is set to true, but if manual invocation of databinding is required, then it can be set to false and databing can be invoked later.

Layout and Rendering

The output stage is rendering the content to a stream or file. This is where all the compoments are laid-out to their text runs, image binarty details, fonts and string measured etc.

And then finally they are written to the data stream (compressed and ordered).

Disposing

It’s a good idea to dispose of your document once created. Scryber itself does not use any unmanaged resources, but other components or extensions build could allocate significant memory blocks, leading to a leak over time.

Manual Execution

using(var doc = PDFDocument.Parse(path))
{
     //make any component changes needed

     doc.InitializeAndLoad();

     // between each of the stages

     doc.DataBind();

     // access any components in templates that
     // are created during databinding

     // all set and ready to output

     doc.RenderToPDF(output);
}

Reuse of a document object

It is not recommended to load or create a documment and execute the rendering multiple times. Because state and output information can be stored on the components themselves it may have unpredictable output.

The parsing or creation of a document object is not usually the most exhaustive process.