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PDFsharp

AGPL or commercial .NET library for creating PDFs with GDI+-style drawing and modifying, merging and splitting existing ones.

Jobs Edit Protect Convert Merge

Since 2001

Operated by empira Software GmbH, Troisdorf (Cologne Area), Germany

Visit PDFsharp

Opens the vendor's own site.

Jobs covered

Open a task to see exactly what the vendor documentation supports.

Edit Browse all edit tools

editing and generating PDFs with PDFsharp and MigraDoc, where the current PDFsharp feature documentation covers creating PDF documents from any .NET language, an object model for composing documents, drawing lines, paths, curves, shapes, images, transparency, form XObjects and fonts, text layout, annotations, and modifying, merging and splitting existing PDFs, and the MigraDoc documentation covers a document object model with paragraphs, tables, charts, sections, bookmarks, tables of contents and indexes that lays out and generates PDF or RTF output.

The scope records object, page, drawing, annotation and MigraDoc generation operations, makes no general existing-text editing, OCR, redaction or fidelity claim, and leaves general form-field and metadata editing unverified because the current feature page does not document them

Protect Browse all protect tools

protecting PDFs with PDFsharp, where the Encryption documentation documents user and owner passwords, opening encrypted PDFs with the user or owner password, writing encrypted PDFs, encryption version 2 using RC4 with a variable key length from 40 to 128 bit, version 4 using AES with a 128 bit key as the default, version 5 using AES with a 256 bit key for PDF 2.0, and document access permission flags. The scope records the documented password, encryption-method and permission controls in the .NET library, notes that readers may enforce permissions, and makes no universal reader-enforcement, legal security or unbreakable-encryption guarantee

Convert Browse all convert tools

converting and generating documents with PDFsharp and MigraDoc, where the PDFsharp feature documentation covers creating PDF documents and drawing content into them, and the MigraDoc documentation says it generates PDF or RTF documents from its document object model. The scope records PDF creation and MigraDoc PDF/RTF generation only, and explicitly makes no claim to render an existing PDF to an image, convert Office or image files to PDF, extract text, or preserve fidelity, because PDFsharp does not render PDF files and the current documentation does not document those conversion directions

Merge Browse all merge tools

merging and splitting PDFs with PDFsharp, where the current feature documentation says the library can modify, merge and split existing PDF files, and the object model exposes pages and page import and addition operations. The scope records the documented page import, addition, copy and assemble operations for combining and splitting existing PDFs, and makes no claim about preserving signatures, forms, links or annotations across a merge or split

Where your files are processed

No server involved

A .NET library compiled into the calling application. It has no server component and no vendor endpoint. That is a property of the library itself: what an application built with it does with your file depends on that application, not on this.

It is an embedded .NET library, so it runs in the process of the application that references it. That describes the library rather than the application hosting it, and API documentation is not evidence that a configured application makes no network calls, so no exhaustive traffic claim is made here.

What it does

PDFsharp is a .NET library from empira Software GmbH in Troisdorf, Germany, for creating, modifying, merging and splitting PDF documents with GDI+-style drawing. Its related MigraDoc library builds documents from a paragraph, table and section object model and renders them to PDF or RTF.

The current stable release is PDFsharp 6.5.0, dated 13 October 2026, and the current preview is PDFsharp 7.0.0 Preview 2, dated the same day. The current packages are published under AGPL-3.0-only or a commercial licence from empira, not MIT.

The Core build targets .NET 8, .NET 9, .NET 10 and .NET Standard 2.0 and runs on Windows, Linux, macOS and other .NET platforms; the GDI and WPF builds target net8.0-windows7.0, net9.0-windows7.0, net10.0-windows7.0 and .NET Framework 4.6.2 and are Windows-only. The documentation covers drawing, text, images, annotations, merging, splitting, encryption and certificate-backed CMS digital signatures, but PDFsharp is not a renderer, a text extractor or an existing-text editor.

Best for

Teams embedding PDF generation, MigraDoc document layout or light structural PDF manipulation in a .NET application, who can comply with the AGPL or buy a commercial licence from empira.

Worth knowing

The current stable package is 6.5.0 and the current preview is 7.0.0 Preview 2, both dated 13 October 2026. The current licence is AGPL-3.0-only or a commercial licence from empira Software GmbH; the earlier MIT value is stale for the current stable package, and MigraDoc 6.5.0 is also AGPL-3.0-only.

There is no public commercial price; commercial licensing and support route through empira. The Core build targets .NET 8, .NET 9, .NET 10 and .NET Standard 2.0 and is cross-platform, while the GDI and WPF builds target net8.0-windows7.0, net9.0-windows7.0, net10.0-windows7.0 and .NET Framework 4.6.2 and are Windows-only; do not treat GDI or WPF as cross-platform.

PDFsharp cannot render PDF files to images and is not a text extractor or a general editor of existing page text; text extraction and existing-content editing are absent at the API level, and the preview control is for drawing operations, not rendering imported PDFs. The current feature page documents annotations but does not document general form-field or metadata editing, so those are not claimed here.

The Core build needs a FontResolver on Linux and macOS and accepts a narrower image set than the Windows builds. Encryption supports user and owner passwords, RC4 40-128 bit, AES-128 default, AES-256 for PDF 2.0 and permission flags; readers may enforce permissions but no universal reader-enforcement or legal security guarantee is made.

Certificate-backed CMS signatures are documented separately with optional timestamps, but no sign job is added to this record. There is no OCR, redaction, PDF/A compliance in the stable line, or Office/image conversion, and no hosted service.

Details, and where each comes from

Vendor statements, our own reading of their pages, and the things nobody has established yet, each answered separately. Where we have not confirmed something it says so rather than guessing, and a row nobody has established is greyed out.

Versions covered
Windows · macOS · Linux · Self-hosted
Website
docs.pdfsharp.net
Requires an account
Not applicable
Watermark on the free tier
Not verified
Maximum file size
Not verified
Batch processing
Yes
Data residency
Self-hosted
Open source
Yes
Self-hostable
Yes
Licence
AGPL-3.0-only or commercial.

AGPL-3.0-only or commercial. The current NuGet packages for PDFsharp 6.5.0 and 7.0.0-preview-2 declare AGPL-3.0-only, and the current documentation, GitHub README and pdfsharp.com support page say the libraries are published under the free AGPL licence with a separate commercial licence available from empira Software GmbH.

The current MigraDoc 6.5.0 package is also AGPL-3.0-only. The earlier MIT value applies to an older line and is stale for the current stable package.

No commercial price is published; commercial licensing and support route through empira. The libraries are open source under the AGPL path, and no hosted service is involved.

Redaction
No redaction feature
Programmatic access
Embeddable library
Last availability check
Responded in 342 ms 21 October 2026

Checked automatically by our own runner, not reported by the vendor. 100% of our last 30 checks got a response.

What the redaction verdict rests on

From the vendor's own documentation, read 22 September 2026. Not tested by us.

What that does not establish

The vendor’s own site was read on 22 September 2026 and contains no mention of redaction, sanitisation, blackout or whiteout. Absence from a vendor’s own material is not proof that a feature does not exist - it may be undocumented, or on a page the reading did not reach - but for a NEGATIVE claim it is the strongest evidence available, and it is weaker than a positive quote.

Recorded as such rather than presented as certainty.

https://docs.pdfsharp.net

What the vendor says

Claims are labelled rather than repeated as fact. Where we have checked something ourselves, it says so and shows when. Checked means we read the vendor's own page and it says what we recorded - not that we tested the behaviour, unless the note says we did.

  • “This project is actively maintained by the PDFsharp Team. Professional assistance for production is available upon request.”

    Checked by us - the source says this Read 21 September 2026

    Confirmed verbatim: the claim is two consecutive lines of the README. It is a maintenance-status claim, which is the kind this index should carry for any library a reader might build on, and the two halves say different things.

    "Actively maintained by the PDFsharp Team" is a statement about the project; "professional assistance for production is available upon request" is a statement about a commercial support arrangement, and "upon request" is doing quiet work - it means the assistance is not free. A reader choosing a library for production should read the second line as an offer rather than as a guarantee of support.

    Recorded as the project's description; no control was run.

    Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte

    Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
    Read
    https://github.com/empira/PDFsharp
    From
    the text a browser renders
    SHA-256
    7c24146c797a515e9973e8e61a3e8affbc63f71d2eb32d7002aedde69d02a767

    How we checked

    https://github.com/empira/PDFsharp rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs on 2026-09-21 (visible text 3424 bytes). sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the rendered text.

    What this hash proves, and what it does not

  • “PDFsharp comes with a preview control designed to visualize drawing operations of the XGraphics object, but it cannot render PDF files.”

    Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026

    Confirmed verbatim: the sentence appears unaltered in the FAQ. It is a negative capability statement, and it exists because the project's own name invites the wrong expectation - a reader could reasonably assume a PDF library ships a PDF viewer.

    The page is being clear that the preview control draws XGraphics operations rather than reading PDF files, which is the distinction between a library that creates PDFs and one that displays them. Recorded as the project's documentation; no library was installed and no control was run.

    Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte

    Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
    Read
    https://docs.pdfsharp.net/PDFsharp/Overview/FAQ.html
    From
    the text a browser renders
    SHA-256
    715862a02b0643201e3b3219a25535d4cec1c52d45899d10426e0445c3b756bf

    How we checked

    Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://docs.pdfsharp.net/PDFsharp/Overview/FAQ.html re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-docs-pdfsharp-net-PDFsharp-Overview-FAQ-html-a1007263.txt.

    What this hash proves, and what it does not

Each claim is quoted from the vendor's own pages. This section describes what we have and have not checked - it is not a judgement about anyone.

Sponsorship is distribution, not an endorsement or a promise of search rankings, AI citations, traffic, or sales. This listing is a free entry, compiled from published sources.

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Related reading

How this record was put together

Editorial review.
No editor has signed this record off. That is not the same as nothing having been checked, and the lines below say what has.
Source reading.
2 claims taken from the vendor's own pages, read between 21 September 2026 and 22 September 2026.
Website availability.
The vendor's site was last checked on 21 October 2026.
Behaviour testing.
We ran this ourselves. The file handling was watched directly.

Sources: docs.pdfsharp.net (home, PDFsharp About, Features, FAQ, Specifications, General History); github.com/empira/PDFsharp README, LICENSE file, GitHub REST API metadata, commit history and tags; NuGet package registration and flat-container version list for PDFsharp; nuget.org packages/PDFsharp; pdfsharp.com/Offers; the licensed features list on docs.pdfsharp.net.