C# PDF Page Header/Footer Library
How to add, edit header and footer in PDF file using c# .net with example source code

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create Acrobat compatible PDF page header and footer section contents using C# in your .NET applications.

• Add static text message to page header/footer
• Add dynamic fields (Page Number, Date) to page header/footer
• Add image content to page header/footer
• Update existing page header/footer
• Remove existing page header/footer

How to add, remove PDF page header and footer programmatically using C#

1. Download XDoc.PDF page header & footer C# library
2. Install C# library to edit PDF page header & footer
3. Step by Step Tutorial

Free Download

• Professional PDF SDK for Visual Studio .NET, which able to add header, footer, page number in C#.NET class
• Advanced PDF edit control and component for modify header, footer, page number in both C#.NET WinForms
• Free online sample code for quick evaluation in Visual C#.NET Core and Framework for PDF page header, footer
• Support .NET WinForms, ASP.NET Core, ASP.NET MVC in IIS, ASP.NET Ajax, Azure cloud service, SharePoint
• Besides page header, footer edit, PDF C# library also includes page count, resize pdf page, rotate pdf pages orientation, add new pages, remove, delete pages from PDF, extract PDF pages
• Easy to add/remove header, footer to/from PDF page online in browser in ASP.NET web project
• Support to copy a PDF page header, footer to another PDF file page in .NET framework
• Support to add different headers/footers to PDF file.

C#.NET:Define Header and Footer regions

Using XDoc.PDF library, the region of header and footer is defined through Page Margins as follows:

1. Header : The area surrounded by Left, Right and Top Margin.
2. Footer : The area surrounded by Left, Right and Bottom Margin.

The header/footer region can be devided into 3 PDFPageTextField (Left/Center/Right).
You can define text font and text color through PDFPageTextField object.
The region and location of header/footer are as follows:

Add Header & Footer to PDF File using C#

You can add, insert fixed text message (such as document title, author name etc.) to page header & footer fields , you can also add message with one or more dynamic field tokens. It supports two dynamic field tokens: automatic page number, and date.

A dynamic field token must be in form "<<***>>".

For Automatic Page Number

1. <<1>> : Page number only.
2. <<1/n>> : Page number and total page count, with separator '/'.

For Date

1. <<m/d>> : Month and day, with separator '/'.
2. <<m/d/yy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '/'.
3. <<m/d/yyyy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '/'.
4. <<mm/dd/yy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '/'.
5. <<mm/dd/yyyy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '/'.
6. <<d/m/yy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '/'.
7. <<d/m/yyyy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '/'.
8. <<dd/mm/yy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '/'.
9. <<dd/mm/yyyy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '/'.
10. <<mm/yy>> : Month and year, with separator '/'.
11. <<mm/yyyy>> : Month and year, with separator '/'.
12. <<m.d.yy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '.'.
13. <<m.d.yyyy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '.'.
14. <<mm.dd.yy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '.'.
15. <<mm.dd.yyyy>> : Month, day and year, with separator '.'.
16. <<mm.yy>> : Month and year, with separator '.'.
17. <<mm.yyyy>> : Month and year, with separator '.'.
18. <<d.m.yy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '.'.
19. <<d.m.yyyy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '.'.
20. <<dd.mm.yy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '.'.
21. <<dd.mm.yyyy>> : Day, month and year, with separator '.'.
22. <<yy-mm-dd>> : Year, month and day, with separator '-'.
23. <<yyyy-mm-dd>> : Year, month and day, with separator '-'.

The following demo code will explain how to add header or footer to PDF file using C#.

String inputFilePath = Program.RootPath + "\\" + "1.pdf";
String outputFilePath = Program.RootPath + "\\" + "1_hdrftr.pdf";

//  open a PDF file
PDFDocument doc = new PDFDocument(inputFilePath);

{
    //  define a header/footer setting
    PDFPageHeaderFooter hdrftr1 = new PDFPageHeaderFooter();
    //  set center header field
    hdrftr1.CenterHeaderField.Set(@"Title: *****", new Font("Arial", 12F, FontStyle.Regular), Color.Black);
    //  set left footer field
    hdrftr1.LeftFooterField.Set("Page <<1/n>>", new Font("Arial", 9F, FontStyle.Regular), Color.DarkGray);

    //  define page range: all odd pages
    PageRangeOptions pageRange1 = new PageRangeOptions();
    pageRange1.AllPages = true;
    pageRange1.Subset = PageRangeSubset.Odd;

    //  apply header/footer settings to all odd pages
    PDFPageFieldHandler.ApplyHeaderFooter(doc, hdrftr1, pageRange1);
}
{
    //  define a header/footer setting
    PDFPageHeaderFooter hdrftr2 = new PDFPageHeaderFooter();
    //  set center header field
    hdrftr2.CenterHeaderField.Set(@"Title: *****", new Font("Arial", 12F, FontStyle.Regular), Color.Black);
    //  set right footer field
    hdrftr2.RightFooterField.Set("Page <<1/n>>", new Font("Arial", 9F, FontStyle.Regular), Color.DarkGray);

    //  define page range: all even pages
    PageRangeOptions pageRange2 = new PageRangeOptions();
    pageRange2.AllPages = true;
    pageRange2.Subset = PageRangeSubset.Even;

    //  apply header/footer settings to all even pages
    PDFPageFieldHandler.ApplyHeaderFooter(doc, hdrftr2, pageRange2);
}

doc.Save(outputFilePath);

Add image in PDF header and footer using C#

Like Acrobat, XDoc.PDF C# library does not support adding image in PDF header and footer through PDFPageHeaderFooter object. However you can do it through PDF watermark.

The text and C# source code below explains how to create, add image to PDF page header and footer using C# code.

1. Create a PDFDocument object from an existing PDF file path
2. Create a PDFWatermarkImageRes image watermark object from an existing raster image file
3. Customize PDFWatermarkImageRes object with options, such as below the page content, opacity.
4. Apply the image position with horizontal and vertical alignment and margin spaces. Make sure the image location is inside the page header and footer area.
5. Create a PageRangeOptions object with image inserted page range specified
6. Call PDFPageFieldHandler.ApplyWatermark() to add image to specified pages
7. Save modified PDF document to a new PDF file

String inputFilePath = Path.Combine(inputFolder, "Input.pdf");
String outputFilePath = Path.Combine(inputFolder, "output.pdf");
Bitmap resImage = new Bitmap(Path.Combine(inputFolder, "RE_logo.jpg"));

//  Open file
PDFDocument doc = new PDFDocument(inputFilePath);

//  Load image resource for the watermark
PDFWatermarkImageRes resWatermark = new PDFWatermarkImageRes(resImage);

//  Define a watermark setting
PDFPageWatermark watermark = new PDFPageWatermark(resWatermark);
//  Set watermark behind the page content.
watermark.IsAbovePage = false;
//  Set transparancy.
watermark.Opacity = 0.9F;
//  Set Alignment (Top left)
watermark.HoriAlignment = WatermarkHoriAlignment.Left;
watermark.VertAlignment = WatermarkVertAlignemnt.Top;
//  Shift image 0.05 inches in horizontally and 0.1 inches in vertically.
watermark.HoriMargin = 0.05F;
watermark.VertMargin = 0.1F;

//  Define page range: all pages
PageRangeOptions pageRange = new PageRangeOptions();
pageRange.AllPages = true;
pageRange.Subset = PageRangeSubset.All;

//  Apply watermark settings to all odd pages
PDFPageFieldHandler.ApplyWatermark(doc, watermark, pageRange);

//  Save file
doc.Save(outputFilePath);

You can view more watermark functions using C# PDF library in C# code at How to add, remove text, image watermark to pdf using C# code?

Remove all Page Header/Footer data from a PDF document object using C#

The text and C# source code below shows how to remove page header and footer from PDF document using C# code.

1. Create a PDFDocument object from a PDF file path
2. Call PDFPageFieldHandler.RemoveHeaderFooters() to remove page header and footer from PDF document
3. Save modified PDF document to a new PDF file

String inputFilePath = Program.RootPath + "\\" + "1_hdrftr.pdf";
String outputFilePath = Program.RootPath + "\\" + "output.pdf";

PDFDocument doc = new PDFDocument(inputFilePath);
PDFPageFieldHandler.RemoveHeaderFooters(doc);
doc.Save(outputFilePath);

Retrieve all Page Header/Footer settings from a PDF file using C#

String inputFilePath = Program.RootPath + "\\" + "1_hdrftr.pdf";

PDFDocument doc = new PDFDocument(inputFilePath);

//  get all Header/Footer settings in the document
PDFPageHeaderFooterInfo info = PDFPageFieldHandler.RetreiveHeaderFooters(doc);

//  get default setting for Header/Footer and Page Range
PDFPageHeaderFooter defaultSetting = info.GetDefaultSetting();
PageRangeOptions defaultPageRange = info.GetDefaultPageRangeSettings();