Build Versus Buy: PDF Creation
Many times when writing an application, requirements dictate that some of the application output be available as a PDF. Perhaps you are showing an invoice and want a printable, emailable, and nice looking "frozen" copy of the invoice. Or you want to make a non-editable but executable contract copy on the fly. Or perhaps you don't know if the user has Office installed, and you want formatted documents that they can open. Your next thought is, "Someone must have done this before." You search for ".NET component create pdf" and find that there are several components available. You then need to do some research and try to "bake-off" the components, to determine the best combination of development licensing cost, ease of use, runtime license terms, stability (of the component itself) and stability (of the company who publishes the component - will they be around to support this in a year or two?).
We have been in this situation a few times, and can say that Tall PDF component (http://www.tallcomponents.com/) has been great. Supports .NET 1.1 and 2.0, runtime licensing is reasonable, good help and example code, and it gives you a ton of functionality that would take you forever to write on your own. If this helps you short-circuit your bake-off, we are glad to help. We have three successful projects where we have used it, and it works great.