iTextSharp ColumnText.SetSimpleColumn Addtext causes Error in Adobe Reader X 10.1.5

Question

The code below illustrates a problem I have with iTextSharp. Everything works perfectly. The pdf file is created and appears correct on the screen. When I print the pdf from Adobe Reader X, it looks exactly right but Adobe reports "An error exists on this page. Acrobat may not display the page correctly. Please contact the person who created the PDF document to correct the problem."

Unfortunately, the file has to be attached to an email and sent to clients. The error message is not a good look and I want to fix it. It happens in all versions of Reader that I have tried, including 10.1.15 installed today.

I have iTextSharp 5.3.4.0 under Windows 7 Pro SP1

    private void writeTestDoc()
    {
        string fname = "test.pdf";
        float textWidth = 500;
        float leftMgn = 60;
        float rubricTop = 720;
        float leftPad = 5;
        float topPad = 12;
        float leading = 0;
        BaseFont baseCalibri = BaseFont.CreateFont("c:/windows/fonts/calibri.ttf", BaseFont.WINANSI, true);
        Font plainFont = new Font(baseCalibri, 11, Font.NORMAL);
        Document document = new Document();
        try
        {
            PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, new FileStream(fname, FileMode.Create));
            document.Open();
            PdfContentByte cb = writer.DirectContent;
            cb.BeginText();
            ColumnText ct = new ColumnText(cb);
            float boxTop = rubricTop;
            ct.SetSimpleColumn(leftMgn + leftPad, boxTop - topPad, leftMgn + textWidth, boxTop, leading, Element.ALIGN_CENTER);
            ct.AddText(new Phrase("A test message", plainFont));
            ct.Go();
            cb.EndText();
            document.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            writeFile("ERROR in writeTestDoc " + ex.Message);
        }
    }

Answer 1

Remove cb.BeginText(); and cb.EndText();. It's illegal for BT/ET text objects to be nested. Report the place where you've found the documentation that told you to use BeginText()/EndText in combination with ColumnText, so that we can ask the author to correct it from his or her documentation.