Tutorial: how to create PDF document in VC++ (Visual C++) using PDFDoc Scout library

How to create PDF document file from Visual C++ using PDFDoc Scout library:  "Hello, World!" example

You can download the source code of this example here: pdfdocscout_vc.zip 

This tutorial will teach you how to create simple PDF document from VC++ using PDFDoc Scout library.

1) Install PDFDoc Scout library on your computer and run Visual C++

2) Select the "New.." command from "File" menu (as it is shown below) to run  :
File menu in VC IDE
 
3)The  New Project Wizard dialog will appear on the screen. Select "Win32 Console Application" project type and enter "HelloWorld" as the Project name as shown on the screenshot below:
 
VC new project wizard
Set new project name and click OK
 
4) The wizard will ask what kind of Console Application you want to create. Select  A "Hello, World!" application and click Finish:
 
Select new project type
 
VC++ will show the summary information for a new project. Click OK:
 
New project summary
 
Visual C++ will generate the application code for simple console application
 
Source code editor window will appear. To edit main() function just open the class tree on the left and double click on "H elloWorld Classes" | "Globals" | "main (int argc, char* argv[1])":
 
Main function in code editor
 
VC++ will open main() function: 
 
Code editor window
 
5) To use PDFDoc Scout from  VC++ application you have to tell the compiler to import type library information into the project.
 
To import the type library just add #import compiler directive after #include directive:
 
#import "PDFSDoccout.tlb"
using namespace PDFDocScout;
 
 
6) The code snippet that will generate PDF document should be placed in main() function body.  

// HelloWorld.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//

#include "stdafx.h"

#import "PDFDocScout.tlb"
using namespace PDFDocScout;

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
// initialize OLE
HRESULT hr = CoInitialize(NULL);

// check for errors
if (FAILED(hr)) {
MessageBox(0,"OLE initialization errp","error",MB_OK);
return -1;
}
// declare PDFDoc object
IPDFDocument* PDFDoc = NULL;
CLSID clsid;

// get inuque ID for IPDFDocument interface
hr = CLSIDFromProgID(OLESTR("PDFDocScout.PDFDocument"), &clsid);
// check for errors
if (FAILED(hr)) {
MessageBox(0,"Can't get CLSID for IPDFDocument interface","error",MB_OK);
goto Uninit;
};
// create PDFDoc object
hr = CoCreateInstance(clsid, NULL, CLSCTX_ALL,__uuidof(IPDFDocument), (LPVOID*)&PDFDoc);
// check for errors
if (FAILED(hr)) {
MessageBox(0,"Can't create PDFDoc object","error",MB_OK);
goto Uninit;
}

// initialize library
PDFDoc->InitLibrary("demo", "demo");

// set output PDF filename
PDFDoc->OutputFileName = "c:\\HelloWorld.pdf";
// set library to automatically open generated PDF document in default PDF viewer application
PDFDoc->AutoOpenGeneratedPDF = true;

// starts PDF documen generation
PDFDoc->BeginDocument();

// add text to current page at (100,100) with 15 degrees rotation
PDFDoc->AddText("Hello, World!", 100, 100, 15);

PDFDoc->EndDocument(); // close generated PDF document

// release PDFDoc object
PDFDoc->Release();

// uninitialize OLE libraries
Uninit:
CoUninitialize();
return 0;
}

This code will generate PDF document file that will be saved as "c:\HelloWorld.PDF" file

 
Hint: you can simply copy and paste the code from the sample above into VC++ code editor window:
 
 
 
7) Run the application by pressing F5 (or use  "Build" | "Debug" | "Go")
VC++ will compile and run "Hello, World!" application. It will generate Shapes.PDF file on C:\ disk 
 
You can view generated PDF file (.PDF) using Adobe Reader or another application that is capable of displaying pdf documents.
 
PDF document generated by VC project
 
 
You can download the source code of this example here: pdfdocscout_vc.zip

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