System Requirements

Introduction

Aspose.Slides for .NET is a standalone library: it does not need Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Office. It is published as two NuGet packages, Aspose.Slides.NET and Aspose.Slides.NET6.CrossPlatform. Both provide the same Aspose.Slides namespaces and classes; they differ in the frameworks they target and in how they draw slides, which decides where they run and what they need.

This article lists the .NET versions and platforms each package supports and the system libraries and fonts that Linux needs, and ends with a short program that checks your setup. To add a package to a project, see Installation.

Supported .NET Versions

Each package contains one build of Aspose.Slides per target framework, and NuGet selects the build that matches your project’s target framework.

Package Target frameworks in the package Your project can target
Aspose.Slides.NET net462, net6.0, netstandard2.0 .NET Framework 4.6.2 or later; .NET 6 or later, including .NET 8, .NET 9, and .NET 10
Aspose.Slides.NET6.CrossPlatform net6.0 .NET 6 or later, including .NET 8, .NET 9, and .NET 10

The netstandard2.0 build lets a .NET Standard 2.0 class library reference Aspose.Slides.NET. An application that uses such a library runs the build that matches the application’s own target framework: a .NET 8 application, for example, runs the net6.0 build.

Supported Operating Systems and Processors

Aspose.Slides.NET contains only processor-independent (AnyCPU) managed code, so it runs on the processor architecture of the .NET runtime that loads it. It draws slides through Microsoft’s System.Drawing.Common library, which Microsoft supports only on Windows. On Linux, Aspose.Slides.NET therefore needs the libgdiplus library and a startup switch, described in Linux. It runs on Linux distributions that provide libgdiplus, such as Debian, Ubuntu, and Alpine Linux.

Aspose.Slides.NET6.CrossPlatform draws slides with its own graphics engine. The engine is a native library that the package contains in one build per platform, so the package runs only on these platforms:

Operating system Processors Notes
Windows x86, x64 Windows on ARM64 is not supported.
Linux x64, ARM64 Requires glibc 2.23 or later on x64 and glibc 2.39 or later on ARM64.
macOS x64 (Intel), ARM64 (Apple silicon)

Aspose.Slides.NET6.CrossPlatform does not run on Alpine Linux or other distributions built on musl instead of glibc, or on distributions with an older glibc, such as CentOS 7. Use Aspose.Slides.NET on those systems.

On Windows, the native library of Aspose.Slides.NET6.CrossPlatform uses the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime (MSVCP140.dll and VCRUNTIME140.dll, plus VCRUNTIME140_1.dll on x64). If these files are missing on the target machine, install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable.

Linux

Both packages need additional system libraries on Linux. Without them, the first example in Create Presentations fails with an exception instead of saving the file. The commands below are for Debian and Ubuntu; on these distributions, each library also brings in the DejaVu fonts (fonts-dejavu-core), so text renders without further font packages.

Aspose.Slides.NET6.CrossPlatform

The package’s Linux library requires the fontconfig library:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y libfontconfig1

Without it, creating a Presentation fails with a TypeInitializationException whose inner DllNotFoundException reports that libfontconfig.so.1 cannot be opened.

Minimal base images may not include fontconfig either. The AWS Lambda base image for .NET 8, for example, contains neither fontconfig nor any fonts. In a container image built on it, run dnf install -y fontconfig, which also installs the Noto Sans fonts.

Aspose.Slides.NET

The package requires two things on Linux:

  1. The libgdiplus library:

    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y libgdiplus

  2. The System.Drawing.EnableUnixSupport switch, enabled at the start of your application before any Aspose.Slides call. In a Program.cs with top-level statements, put it after the using directives:

    System.AppContext.SetSwitch("System.Drawing.EnableUnixSupport", true);

Without libgdiplus, saving a presentation fails with a TypeInitializationException whose inner DllNotFoundException reports that libgdiplus cannot be loaded. Without the switch, the inner exception is PlatformNotSupportedException: System.Drawing.Common is not supported on non-Windows platforms.

Alpine Linux

On Alpine Linux, use Aspose.Slides.NET with the switch described above. Alpine images usually contain no fonts, and libgdiplus alone does not install any, so install libgdiplus together with at least one font package. Without fonts, saving a presentation fails with this error:

System.ArgumentException: Font '?' cannot be found.

Option 1: DejaVu fonts

The recommended option is the ttf-dejavu package:

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    libgdiplus \
    ttf-dejavu

On current Alpine releases, ttf-dejavu installs the font-dejavu package, which also installs fontconfig and the font tools it depends on.

Option 2: Microsoft core fonts

If your presentations use Microsoft fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New, or Verdana, install the Microsoft core fonts instead. The update-ms-fonts step downloads the fonts while the image is built, so the build needs internet access:

RUN apk add --no-cache \
    libgdiplus \
    fontconfig \
    msttcorefonts-installer \
    && update-ms-fonts \
    && fc-cache -fv

Globalization Support

Both packages need .NET globalization support, which .NET on Linux provides through the ICU libraries. In globalization-invariant mode, creating a Presentation fails with CultureNotFoundException: Only the invariant culture is supported in globalization-invariant mode.

Some container images turn this mode on. The .NET runtime images for Alpine Linux (runtime-deps, runtime, and aspnet), for example, set DOTNET_SYSTEM_GLOBALIZATION_INVARIANT=true and do not include ICU. In an image built on them, install ICU and turn the mode off:

ENV DOTNET_SYSTEM_GLOBALIZATION_INVARIANT=false
RUN apk --no-cache add icu-libs

Also make sure that your project file does not set the InvariantGlobalization property to true.

Check Your Setup

To check that a package and its requirements are in place, run a program that saves a presentation and renders a slide to an image. Saving and rendering use the graphics library and the fonts, which are what the Linux requirements above provide.

Create a console application and add the package as described in Installation, replace the contents of Program.cs with the code below, and run dotnet run. If you use Aspose.Slides.NET on Linux, add the System.Drawing.EnableUnixSupport switch statement shown in Linux after the using directives. The program uses top-level statements and using declarations, which need C# 9 or later. Projects that target .NET 6 or later use a newer C# version by default; in a project that targets .NET Framework, add <LangVersion>latest</LangVersion> to a PropertyGroup in the project file.

using Aspose.Slides;
using Aspose.Slides.Export;

using var presentation = new Presentation();
var slide = presentation.Slides[0];
var shape = slide.Shapes.AddAutoShape(ShapeType.Rectangle, 50, 50, 400, 100);
shape.TextFrame.Text = "Hello, Aspose.Slides!";
presentation.Save("hello.pptx", SaveFormat.Pptx);

using var image = slide.GetImage(1f, 1f);
image.Save("hello.png", ImageFormat.Png);

The program adds a rectangle with text to the first slide and saves the presentation as hello.pptx with the Save method. It then renders the slide with GetImage and saves the result as hello.png with IImage.Save in the ImageFormat.Png format. The scale factors of 1 render one pixel per point, so the default 720 × 540 point slide becomes a 720 × 540 pixel image, with the text visible inside the rectangle. Without a license, both files also carry an evaluation watermark; see Licensing. If a requirement is missing, the program stops with one of the exceptions described in Linux.

Development Tools

You can build applications that use Aspose.Slides with any tool that supports your project’s target framework: the .NET SDK and its dotnet command-line interface on Windows, Linux, and macOS, or Visual Studio on Windows. Installation describes both.

FAQ

Do I need Microsoft PowerPoint installed for conversions and rendering?

No, PowerPoint is not required. Aspose.Slides is a standalone engine for creating, modifying, converting, and rendering presentations.

Which package should I use?

Use Aspose.Slides.NET on Windows and Aspose.Slides.NET6.CrossPlatform on Linux and macOS. On Alpine Linux, on Linux systems whose glibc is older than the versions listed above, and in projects that target .NET Framework, use Aspose.Slides.NET. Add only one of the two packages to a project.

Which fonts are needed for correct rendering?

The fonts used in the presentation, or suitable substitutes, must be available in the operating system. On Linux and macOS, install the font packages your presentations need to get consistent rendering. On Alpine Linux, install at least one font package in addition to libgdiplus, as described in Alpine Linux.

Why does a custom font render as a fallback or missing text on Linux?

If the font file has inconsistent or corrupted name-table entries, the Linux font-matching stack (FreeType/fontconfig) may select an invalid record, causing the font to be unresolved. Using a font version with corrected name-table records or installing a consistent replacement resolves the issue.

Installation