How to use PDF Focus .Net library under Linux

Here we've prepared for you manual "How to launch PDF Focus .Net under Linux".

Preparing environment

In order to build multi-platform applications using .NET Core on Linux, the first steps are for installing in our Linux machine the required tools.

We need to install .NET Core SDK from Microsoft and to allow us to develop easier, we will install an advance editor with a lot of features, Visual Studio Code from Microsoft.

Both installations are very easy and the detailed description can be found by these two links:

Install .NET Core SDK for Linux..

Install VS Code for Linux..

Install C# extension to facilitate us to code and debugging.

Check the installed Fonts availability

Check that the directory with fonts "/usr/share/fonts/truetype" is exist. Also check that it contains *.ttf files.

Download the archive with *.ttf fonts: Fonts.tar
Uncompress the downloaded font’s archive to a directory and add it to the font path, a list of directories containing fonts:# tar xvzf
Create a directory for new fonts # mkdir /usr/share/fonts/truetype
Move the uncompressed font files to the new font directory# mv *.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype
Navigate to the font directory # cd /usr/share/fonts/truetype
Create fonts.scale and fonts.dir # mkfontscale && mkfontdir # fc-cache
Add the new font directory to the X11 font path# chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/truetype
Restart X font server # /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart

You can verify the successful addition of the new path by running chkfontpath command or by listing X font server's /etc/X11/XF86Config file.

If you do not have root access, copy the *.ttf to ~/.fonts directory instead.

Or you may install “Microsoft TrueType core fonts” using terminal and command: $ sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

With these steps, we will ready to start developing.

In next paragraphs we will explain in detail how to create simple console application. All of them are based on this VS Code guide:

Get Started with C# and Visual Studio Code

Not only is possible to create .NET Core applications that will run on Linux using Linux as a developing platform. It is also possible to create it using a Windows machine and any modern Visual Studio version, as Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022.

Creating “Convert PDF to DOCX” application

Create a new folder in your Linux machine with the name pdf to docx.

For example, let’s create the folder “pdf to docx” on Desktop ( Right click-> New Folder):

Open VS Code and click in the menu File->Open Folder. From the dialog, open the folder you’ve created previously:

Next you will see the similar screen:

Now, open the integrated console – the Terminal: follow to the menu Terminal -> New

Terminal (or press Ctrl+Shift+’):

Create a new console application, using dotnet command.

Type this command in the Terminal console: dotnet new console

command: dotnet run

You can see the typical “Hello world!” message.

Now we are going to convert this simple application into something more interesting. We’ll transform it into an application that will convert a pdf file to a docx file.

First of all, we need to add the package reference to the sautinsoft.pdffocus assembly using Nuget.

In order to do it, follow to the Explorer and open project file “pdf to docx.csproj” within

VS Code to edit it:

<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="SkiaSharp" Version="2.88.6" />
<PackageReference Include="Svg.Skia" Version="1.0.0.3" />
<PackageReference Include="SkiaSharp.NativeAssets.Linux" Version="2.88.6" />
<PackageReference Include="System.IO.Packaging" Version="4.4.0" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Text.Encoding.CodePages" Version="4.5.0" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Xml.XPath.XmlDocument" Version="4.3.0" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Drawing.Common" Version="4.7.3" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.IO.RecyclableMemoryStream" Version="2.3.2" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Security.Cryptography.Pkcs" Version="6.0.4" />
<PackageReference Include="System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager" Version="4.7.0" />
</ItemGroup>

It’s the reference to sautinsoft.pdffocus package from Nuget.

At the moment of writing this manual, the latest version of sautinsoft.pdffocus was

2024.X. But you may specify the latest version, to know what is the latest, follow:

nuget.org/packages/sautinsoft.pdffocus

At once as we’ve added the package reference, we have to save the “pdf to docx.csproj” and restore the added package.

Follow to the Terminal and type the command: dotnet restore

write the code to convert pdf to docx and other formats.

Follow to the Explorer, open the Program.cs, remove all the code and type the new:

using System;
using System.IO;
using SautinSoft.PdfFocus;
namespace pdf_to_docx
{
    class Program
        {
        static void Main(string[] args)
            {
            string pdfFile = Path.GetFullPath(@"..\..\..\text and graphics.pdf");
            string wordFile = "Result.docx";
            // Get your free 30-day key here:
            // https://sautinsoft.com/start-for-free/
            // Convert a PDF file to a Word file
            SautinSoft.PdfFocus f = new SautinSoft.PdfFocus();
            f.OpenPdf(pdfFile);
        if (f.PageCount > 0) 
            {
            // You may choose output format between Docx and Rtf.
            f.WordOptions.Format = SautinSoft.PdfFocus.CWordOptions.eWordDocument.Docx;
            int result = f.ToWord(wordFile);
            }
        }
}

To make tests, we need an input PDF document. For our tests, let’s place a PDF file with the name “example.pdf” at the Desktop.

If we open this file in the default PDF Viewer, we’ll its contents:

Launch our application and convert the “example.pdf” into “example.docx”, type the

command: dotnet run

If you don't see any exceptions, everything is fine and we can check the result produced by the Document .Net library.

The new file “example.docx” has to appear on the Desktop:

Open the result in LibreOffice:

Well done! You have created the “PDF to DOCX” application under Linux!