Using FloatingBox for text generation

This feature also work in Aspose.PDF.Drawing library.

Basics of using the FloatingBox tool

The Floating Box tool is a special tool for placing text and other content on a PDF page. Its main feature is text clipping when it overlaps the size of the FloatingBox.

Document document = new Document();
Page page = document.Pages.Add();
var box = new FloatingBox(400, 30)
{
    Border = new BorderInfo(BorderSide.All, 1.5f, Color.DarkGreen),
    IsNeedRepeating = false,
};
var text = LoremNET.Lorem.Paragraph(20, 6);
box.Paragraphs.Add(new TextFragment(text));
page.Paragraphs.Add(box);

In the example above, we are creating a FloatingBox with a width of 400 pt and a height of 30 pt. Also, in this example, more text was intentionally created than could fit in the given size. As a result, the text was cut off.

Property IsNeedRepeating with false vaule limit text with 1 page.

If we set this property to true the text will be reflow to the next page in the same position.

Advanced features of FloatingBox

Multi-column support

Multi-column layout (simple case)

FloatingBox supports multi-column layout. To create such a layout, you must define the values ​​of the ColumnInfo properties.

• ColumnWidths is a string with enumeration of width in pt.
• ColumnSpacing is a string with width of the gap between columns.
• ColumnCount is a number of columns.

Document document = new Document();
Page page = document.Pages.Add();
page.PageInfo.Margin = new MarginInfo(36, 18, 36, 18);
var columnCount = 3;
var spacing = 10;
var width = page.PageInfo.Width 
    - page.PageInfo.Margin.Left 
    - page.PageInfo.Margin.Right 
    - (columnCount - 1) * spacing;
var columnWidth = width / 3;
var box = new FloatingBox()
{
    IsNeedRepeating = true
};
box.ColumnInfo.ColumnWidths = $"{columnWidth} {columnWidth} {columnWidth}";
box.ColumnInfo.ColumnSpacing = "{spacing}";
box.ColumnInfo.ColumnCount = columnCount;
var paragraphs = LoremNET.Lorem.Paragraphs(20, 8, 20);
foreach (var paragraph in paragraphs)
{
    box.Paragraphs.Add(new TextFragment(paragraph));
}

page.Paragraphs.Add(box);

document.Save("sample.pdf");

We used the additional library LoremNET in the above example and created 20 paragraphs. These paragraphs were divided into three columns and filled the following pages until the text ran out.

Multi-column layout with forced column start

We will do the same with the following example as the previous one. The difference is that we created 3 paragraphs. We can force FloatingBox to render each paragraph in the new column. To do that we need to set IsFirstParagraphInColumn when we adding text to the FloatingBox object.

Document document = new Document();
Page page = document.Pages.Add();
page.PageInfo.Margin = new MarginInfo(36, 18, 36, 18);
var columnCount = 3;
var spacing = 10;
var width = page.PageInfo.Width 
    - page.PageInfo.Margin.Left 
    - page.PageInfo.Margin.Right 
    - (columnCount - 1) * spacing;
var columnWidth = width / 3;
var box = new FloatingBox()
{
    IsNeedRepeating = true
};
box.ColumnInfo.ColumnWidths = $"{columnWidth} {columnWidth} {columnWidth}";
box.ColumnInfo.ColumnSpacing = "{spacing}";
box.ColumnInfo.ColumnCount = 3;

var paragraphs = LoremNET.Lorem.Paragraphs(20, 8, 3);
foreach (var paragraph in paragraphs)
{
    var text = new TextFragment(paragraph)
    {
        IsFirstParagraphInColumn = true
    };
    box.Paragraphs.Add(text);
}

page.Paragraphs.Add(box);

document.Save("sample.pdf");

Background support

You can set desired background color by using BackgroundColor property.

// Initialize document object
Document document = new Document();
Page page = document.Pages.Add();
var box = new FloatingBox(400, 60)
{
    IsNeedRepeating = false,
    BackgroundColor = Color.LightGreen,
};
var text = LoremNET.Lorem.Paragraph(20, 6);
box.Paragraphs.Add(new TextFragment(text));
page.Paragraphs.Add(box);

Offset support

FloatingBox can be shifted to another location by setting the Top and Left values.

Document document = new Document();
Page page = document.Pages.Add();

var box = new FloatingBox()
{
    Top = -45,
    Left = 15,
    Border = new BorderInfo(BorderSide.All, 1.5f, Color.DarkGreen)
};
var text = LoremNET.Lorem.Paragraph(20, 6);
box.Paragraphs.Add(new TextFragment(text));

page.Paragraphs.Add(new TextFragment(LoremNET.Lorem.Paragraph(20, 6)));
page.Paragraphs.Add(box);            
page.Paragraphs.Add(new TextFragment(LoremNET.Lorem.Paragraph(20, 6)));