[Public] Workaround: Converting AnyBitmap to System.Drawing.Bitmap in .NET Framework Desktop Apps

Summary

Developers working with IronBarcode in .NET Framework desktop apps such as WinForms, users may encounter casting errors when trying to assign AnyBitmap directly to a System.Drawing.Image or Bitmap. This is due to differences in implicit conversion support between .NET Framework and .NET Core/.NET 5+.

Problem Description

In .NET Framework (e.g., WinForms project targeting .NET 4.8), the following code will fail at compile time.

Use Case:

• Using IronBarCode in NET Framework Desktop Apps such as WinForm app to create a barcode and display in the picturebox that only accepts System.Drawing.Image objects
• Thrown below error during compile:
  Cannot implicitly convert type 'IronSoftware.Drawing.AnyBitmap' to 'System.Drawing.Image

var myBarcode = BarcodeWriter.CreateBarcode("12345", BarcodeWriterEncoding.EAN8);

//These lines cause compile-time errors

Image myBarcodeImage = myBarcode.Image;
Bitmap myBarcodeBitmap = myBarcode.ToBitmap();

Possible Cause

The type returned by BarcodeWriter.Image or .ToBitmap() is IronSoftware.Drawing.AnyBitmap, which does support implicit conversion to System.Drawing.Bitmap or Image — but only when using .NET 6, .NET 7, .NET 8, or higher.

In .NET Framework, implicit operators and internal type bridging do not always resolve properly, especially when types come from different libraries or compatibility layers.

Recommended Workarounds

Users can use one of the workarounds below to solve this issue

Workaround 1:

Install the Required Package

Add the System.Drawing.Common NuGet package to your project.

.NET CLI:

Package Manager Console:

.csproj (for SDK-style projects):

Workaround 2:

Convert AnyBitmap to Stream

Use the ToWindowsBitmapStream() method and convert manually using a stream before adding the stream into the picturebox:

var myBarcode = BarcodeWriter.CreateBarcode("12345", BarcodeWriterEncoding.EAN8);
myBarcode.ResizeTo(400, 100); // Optional resizing

using (var ms = myBarcode.ToWindowsBitmapStream())
{
pictureBox1.Image = Image.FromStream(ms); // Works in .NET Framework
}

• ToWindowsBitmapStream() converts AnyBitmap to a GDI-compatible image format

• Image.FromStream can safely parse this into a native System.Drawing.Image

Additional Notes

• You may also convert AnyBitmap object to stream using ToStream()