Adjust the magnification of PDF documents using the WPF PDF Viewer

15 Nov 20225 minutes to read

The WPF PDF Viewer has predefined set of zoom tools in the built-in toolbar, that allows you to change magnifications of the PDF document that is being displayed.

Zoom tools of WPF PDF Viewer

  1. Combo box: It allows you to select a zoom percentage from the pre-defined set of values listed in the dropdown. Since it is editable, you can also provide your zoom values by double editing the text area.
  2. Zoom out button: It allows you to reduce the zoom value by 25% from the current zoom percentage.
  3. Zoom in button: It allows you to increase the zoom value by 25% from the current zoom percentage.
  4. Fit to width button: It allows you to fit the document to the width of the control.
  5. Fit to page button: It allows you to fit a whole page in the window and to view only one page at a time.

Hide the zoom tools in the toolbar

You can hide the zoom tools in the toolbar by setting the ShowZoomTools property of ToolbarSettings to false. Refer to the following code sample to hide the zoom tools.

// Hide the zoom tools
pdfViewer.ToolbarSettings.ShowZoomTools = false;

Customization using APIs

If you are using PdfDocumentView control or do not want to use the built-in toolbar, you can still accomplish the functions, using the PDF Viewer’s APIs.

Magnify the document to a given zoom percentage

You can magnify the document to a given zoom percentage by using the ZoomTo function of the PDF Viewer. Refer to the following code sample to apply the specific zoom percentage based on the page contents.

//Zoom to 235 percentage.
pdfViewer.ZoomTo(235);

The ZoomPercentage property can be used to get the control’s current zoom percentage.

//Get the current zoom percentage.
int currentZoomPercentage = pdfViewer.ZoomPercentage;

Zoom modes

As stated above, the PDF Viewer supports the fit to page and fit to width zoom modes. You can change the zoom mode, using the ZoomMode property of the PDF Viewer. Refer to the following code sample to change the zoom mode.

//To apply fit-to-page zoom mode.
pdfViewer.ZoomMode = ZoomMode.FitPage;
// To apply fit-to-width zoom mode.
pdfViewer.ZoomMode = ZoomMode.FitWidth;

Define the minimum and maximum zoom percentage

The default minimum and maximum zoom percentage of the PDF Viewer is 50 and 400 respectively. However, the PDF Viewer allows you to customize the minimum and maximum zoom percentage values based on your requirement.

You can customize the minimum zoom percentage of the PDF viewer using the MinimumZoomPercentage property. Its default value is 50. Refer to the following code sample to set the property and apply the customized minimum zoom percent to the PDF Viewer

NOTE

The allowed value of this property ranges from 10 to the value of the MaximumZoomPercentage of PDF Viewer.

//Load PDF document.
pdfViewer.Load(@"../../Data/Barcode.pdf");
//Set the minimum zoom percentage.
pdfViewer.MinimumZoomPercentage = 20;
//Magnify the document to minimum zoom percentage.
pdfViewer.ZoomTo(pdfviewer.MinimumZoomPercentage);

Similarly, you can customize the maximum zoom percentage of the PDF Viewer using the MaximumZoomPercentage property. Its default value is 400. Refer to the following code sample to set the property and apply the customized maximum zoom percentage to PDF Viewer.

NOTE

The allowed value of this property ranges from the value of MinimumZoomPercentage of the PDF Viewer to 6400 for PDFium (default) rendering engine and 800 for SfPdf rendering engine, respectively.

// Load PDF document.
pdfviewer.Load(@"../../Data/Barcode.pdf");
//Set the maximum zoom percentage.
pdfviewer.MaximumZoomPercentage = 600;
//Magnify the document to maximum zoom percentage.
pdfviewer.ZoomTo(pdfviewer.MaximumZoomPercentage);

Zoom changes notification

You can be notified whenever the magnification is changed in the PDF Viewer using the ZoomChanged event. You can also obtain the current zoom percentage using the ZoomEventArgs event. Refer to the following code sample to wire and handle the event.

void WireZoomChangedEvent()
{
    pdfViewer.ZoomChanged += PdfViewer_ZoomChanged;
}

private void PdfViewer_ZoomChanged(object sender, ZoomEventArgs args)
{
    int currentZoomPercentage = args.ZoomPercentage;
}

Active view port rendering at higher zoom percentages

From the 19.3 version, the MaximumZoomPercentage of the PDF Viewer can be extended up to 6400% with the support of active view port rendering at higher zoom percentages. It renders only the part of the PDF file that is visible on-screen and ignoring the parts that are outside the viewport. The mode is automatically enabled when the page size or zoom increased beyond a specified limit on the zooming. This approach will be helpful to open the large-size pages containing PDF documents at higher zoom levels.

NOTE

Active view port rendering is supported only for the PDFium (default) rendering engine.

You need to set the MaximumZoomPercentage and call ZoomTo method to achieve it from the application level as shown in the following code example.

//Set the maximum zoom percentage.
pdfviewer.MaximumZoomPercentage = 6400;
//Magnify the document to the zoom percentage you needed (less than or equal to 6400).
//In the below example, control will magnify to 1200% zoom.
pdfviewer.ZoomTo(1200);

Pinch to zoom

The WPF PDF Viewer supports pinch-to-zoom, allows users to magnify using touch gestures when working on a device with a touch screen. To use pinch-to-zoom, place two fingers on the control and move them apart to zoom in (or together to zoom out).

Mouse and keyboard shortcuts

Ctrl (key) + Scroll the mouse wheel up - To perform zoom in.
Ctrl (key) + Scroll the mouse wheel down - To perform zoom out.