Using DocumentUltimate in an ASP.NET MVC project

To use DocumentUltimate in an ASP.NET MVC Project, do the following in Visual Studio:

Make sure you have added references to DocumentUltimate assemblies as described here.

Optionally set DocumentUltimate's global configuration (if overriding a default value is required). For example, you may want to set the license key and the document cache location.

You can specify the configuration in <appSettings> tag of your Web.config.

XML

<appSettings>
  <!--
    Set this property only if you have a valid license key, otherwise do not
    set it so DocumentUltimate runs in trial mode.
  -->
  <add key="DocumentUltimate:LicenseKey" value="QQJDJLJP34..." />

  <!--
    The default CacheLocation value is "~/App_Data/DocumentCache"
    Both virtual and physical paths are allowed (or a Location instance for one of the supported 
    file systems like Amazon S3 and Azure Blob).
  -->
  <add key="DocumentUltimateWeb:CacheLocation" value="~/App_Data/DocumentCache" />
</appSettings>

As you would notice, DocumentUltimate: prefix maps to DocumentUltimateConfiguration.Current and DocumentUltimateWeb: prefix maps to DocumentUltimateWebConfiguration.Current.

Alternatively you can specify the configuration in code, in Application_Start method of your Global.asax.cs:

protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    //Set this property only if you have a valid license key, otherwise do not
    //set it so DocumentUltimate runs in trial mode.
    DocumentUltimateConfiguration.Current.LicenseKey = "QQJDJLJP34...";

    //The default CacheLocation value is "~/App_Data/DocumentCache"
    //Both virtual and physical paths are allowed (or a Location instance for one of the supported 
    //file systems like Amazon S3 and Azure Blob).
    DocumentUltimateWebConfiguration.Current.CacheLocation = "~/App_Data/DocumentCache";
}

Sub Application_Start(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
    'Set this property only if you have a valid license key, otherwise do not
    'set it so DocumentUltimate runs in trial mode.
    DocumentUltimateConfiguration.Current.LicenseKey = "QQJDJLJP34..."

    'The default CacheLocation value is "~/App_Data/DocumentCache"
    'Both virtual and physical paths are allowed (or a Location instance for one of the supported 
    'file systems like Amazon S3 and Azure Blob).
    DocumentUltimateWebConfiguration.Current.CacheLocation = "~/App_Data/DocumentCache"
End Sub

Create a new View (eg. Index.cshtml) and insert these lines:

@using GleamTech.AspNet.Mvc
@using GleamTech.DocumentUltimate
@using GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet
@using GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet.UI

<!DOCTYPE html>
@{
    var documentViewer = new DocumentViewer
    {
        Width = 800,
        Height = 600,
        Document = "~/Documents/Document.docx"
    };
}
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Document Viewer</title>
        @this.RenderHead(documentViewer)
    </head>
    <body>
        @this.RenderBody(documentViewer)
    </body>
</html>

@Imports GleamTech.AspNet.Mvc
@Imports GleamTech.DocumentUltimate
@Imports GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet
@Imports GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet.UI

<!DOCTYPE html>
@Code
    Dim documentViewer = New DocumentViewer() With {
        .Width = 800,
        .Height = 600,
        .Document = "~/Documents/Document.docx"
    }
End Code
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Document Viewer</title>
        @Me.RenderHead(documentViewer)
    </head>
    <body>
        @Me.RenderBody(documentViewer)
    </body>
</html>

This will render a DocumentViewer control in the page which loads and displays the source document ~/Documents/Document.docx. Upon first view, internally DocumentViewer will convert the source document to PDF (used for "Download as Pdf" and also for next conversion step) and then to XPZ (a special web-friendly format which DocumentViewer uses to actually render documents in the browser). So in this case the user will see "please wait awhile..." message in the viewer for a few seconds. These generated PDF and XPZ files will be cached and upon consecutive page views, the document will be served directly from the cache so the user will see the document instantly on second viewing. When you modify the source document, the cached files are invalidated so your original document and the corresponding cached files are always synced automatically. Note that it's also possible to pre-cache documents via DocumentCache.PreCacheDocument method (e.g. when your user uploads a document), see Pre-caching documents for more information.

Tip

Alternatively you can add the namespaces globally in Views/Web.config under <system.web.webPages.razor>/<pages>/<namespaces> tag to avoid adding namespaces in your pages every time:

XML

<system.web.webPages.razor>
  <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
    <namespaces>
      <add namespace="GleamTech.AspNet.Mvc" />
      <add namespace="GleamTech.DocumentUltimate" />
      <add namespace="GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet" />
      <add namespace="GleamTech.DocumentUltimate.AspNet.UI" />
    </namespaces>
  </pages>
</system.web.webPages.razor>