CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlpdfbrowser
CodeGuy
CodeGuy

Reputation: 28907

Display PDF within web browser

How can I display a pdf within a web browser on an .html page?

Upvotes: 112

Views: 388301

Answers (21)

Mat Barnett
Mat Barnett

Reputation: 17

Have you tried using a simple img tag?

This can work in Safari, but as you can see by the negative score, it is not a useful solution.

You could use something like ImageMagick to create a JPEG from a PDF and use that as a preview/thumbnail.

Upvotes: -6

Mikhail Ionkin
Mikhail Ionkin

Reputation: 617

The important moment: you need to define Content-Type in the HTTP response (on the server), for example: Content-Type: application/pdf. In html, you need to define

<embed src="url/to/your/file.pdf" width="100%"/>

Checked on:

  • Chrome
  • Firefox

Upvotes: 0

BAKARI SHEGHEMBE
BAKARI SHEGHEMBE

Reputation: 509

preffered using the object tag

<object data='http://website.com/nameoffolder/documentname.pdf#toolbar=1' 
        type='application/pdf' 
        width='100%' height='700px'>
</object>

note that you can change the width and height to any value you please visit http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_object.asp

Upvotes: 36

Tugrul Yildirim
Tugrul Yildirim

Reputation: 491

I have been using object element to display PDF. But I am also using IDM extension. And when I reload the page, it tries to download the pdf. So I am creating a route in my laravel projects like this

Route::get('/pdf/{filename}', function ($filename) {
    $path = storage_path('app/public/pdfs/' . $filename);

    if (!File::exists($path)) {
        abort(404);
    }

    $headers = [
        'Content-Type' => 'application/pdf',
        'Content-Disposition' => 'inline; filename="' . $filename . '"'
    ];

    return response()->file($path, $headers);
});

After this I am calling url from object element. And I can finally see pdf displayed in the browser even I have third party extensions.

<object data="{{ url('/pdf/' . $product->pdf) }}" type="application/pdf" width="100%" height="250">
    <p>Cannot view PDF ?. <a href="{{ url('/pdf/' . $product->pdf) }}" download title="Download PDF">Download PDF</a>.</p>
</object>

Upvotes: 0

Valerio Ageno
Valerio Ageno

Reputation: 134

I think the object HTML can be the right choice for this kind of operations

Upvotes: -1

Simon Fakir
Simon Fakir

Reputation: 1802

I did a careful evaluation of providers on this space:

free solutions

  • iframe: Just use an iframe, however, this is not what most people search here.
  • Pdf.js is the open source solution without external dependencies
  • Adobe offers a 'free' PDF Embed API

Commercial Providers

Hope this helps. I might publish more detailed information in a blogpost, if this is helping people (let me know in comments).

Upvotes: 8

K J
K J

Reputation: 11737

By far the simplest method to avoid cross site and or server load Issues is include the cover icons in the page and provide a DownLink. It is minimal demand rendering a page of several covers / icons. The second best method is show a single iFrame with your adjoining commentary.

However many modern browser users a weary of exploits may have turned PDF display OFF and blocked any attempts to pop-up or window.open inline runnable embedment objects like SWF or PDF.

Note the snippet is a small icon but you can use larger front cover like Amazon Books (within the browser datauri limits)

<center>  

<h4>Click on the below icon to download pdf file :<br>If blocked by Security Refresh to show Cover and Right Click to Download</h5>  

<a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tests/xhtml/testfiles/resources/pdf/dummy.pdf">
<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" alt="react">
<br><b> Download Dummy.pdf</b></a>

enter image description here

Upvotes: 0

navins
navins

Reputation: 3459

instead of using iframe and depending on the third party`think about using flexpaper, or pdf.js.

I used PDF.js, it works fine for me. Here is the demo.

Upvotes: 44

Carles Barrob&#233;s
Carles Barrob&#233;s

Reputation: 11683

[this is a very old answer, from when other options mentioned now didn't exist]

Back in 2011, we used to render the PDF file pages as PNG files on the server using JPedal (a java library). That, combined with some javascript, gave us high control over visualization and navigation.

Upvotes: -1

Spectric
Spectric

Reputation: 31987

If you don't want to use some third party, you can use the <embed> tag with the source of the file in the src attribute. This uses the native browser PDF viewer, and offers more browser support than the object tag.

<embed src="your_pdf_src" style="position:absolute; left: 0; top: 0;" width="100%" height="100%" type="application/pdf">

Live example:

<embed src="https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tests/xhtml/testfiles/resources/pdf/dummy.pdf" style="position:absolute; left: 0; top: 0;" width="100%" height="100%" type="application/pdf">

Loading the PDF inside a snippet won't work, since the frame into which the plugin is loading is sandboxed.

Tested in Chrome and Firefox. See it in action.

Upvotes: 3

NeNaD
NeNaD

Reputation: 20304

Update - Adobe PDF Embed API

Adobe released their Adobe PDF Embed API which is completely free. Since they created the PDF format itself, their API is probably the best for this.

  • It delivers the highest quality PDF rendering available.
  • You can fully customize user experience and choose how to display a PDF.
  • You will also have analytics on PDF usage so you can understand how users interact with PDFs, including time spent on a page and searches.

All you have to do is create an api_key and use it in the code snippet.

Displaying PDF as buffer

Here is the example of the code snippet that you can just add to your HTML and take advantage of their API for displaying PDF if you have the buffer (local file for example). You would have to add { promise: <FILE_PROMISE> } config.

<div id="adobe-dc-view"></div>

<script src="https://documentcloud.adobe.com/view-sdk/main.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
  document.addEventListener("adobe_dc_view_sdk.ready", function(){
    var adobeDCView = new AdobeDC.View({clientId: "api_key", divId: "adobe-dc-view"});
    adobeDCView.previewFile({
      content: { promise: <FILE_PROMISE> }
      metaData: { fileName: "file_name_to_display" }
    }, {});
  });
</script>

Displaying PDF by file_url

Here is the example of the code snippet that you can just add to your HTML and take advantage of their API for displaying PDF by file_url. You would have to add { location: { url: "url_of_the_pdf" } } config.

<div id="adobe-dc-view"></div>

<script src="https://documentcloud.adobe.com/view-sdk/main.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
  document.addEventListener("adobe_dc_view_sdk.ready", function(){
    var adobeDCView = new AdobeDC.View({clientId: "api_key", divId: "adobe-dc-view"});
    adobeDCView.previewFile({
      content: { location: { url: "url_of_the_pdf" } },
      metaData: { fileName: "file_name_to_display" }
    }, {});
  });
</script>

Upvotes: 1

Marcus
Marcus

Reputation: 3797

I recently needed to provide a more mobile-friendly, responsive version of a .pdf document, because narrow phone screens required scrolling right and left a lot. To allow just vertical scrolling and avoid horizontal scrolling, the following steps worked for me:

  • Open the .pdf in Chrome browser
  • Click Open with Google Docs
  • Click File > Download > Web Page
  • Click on the downloaded document to unzip it
  • Click on the unzipped HTML document to open it in Chrome browser
  • Press fn F12 to open Chrome Dev Tools
  • Paste copy(document.documentElement.outerHTML.replace(/padding:72pt 72pt 72pt 72pt;/, '').replace(/margin-right:.*?pt/g, '')) into the Console, and press Enter to copy the tweaked document to the clipboard
  • Open a text editor (e.g., Notepad), or in my case VSCode, paste, and save with a .html extension.

The result looked good and was usable in both desktop and mobile environments.

Upvotes: -1

Asuquo12
Asuquo12

Reputation: 835

You can also have this simple GoogleDoc approach.

<a  style="color: green;" href="http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://domain//docs/<?php echo $row['docname'] ;?>" target="_blank">View</a>

This would create a new page for you to view the doc without distorting your flow.

Upvotes: 0

Abhishek SIngh
Abhishek SIngh

Reputation: 1

Displaying content saved in PDF/DOC/DOCX file format is ideal for displaying the pdf/doc/docx file on your web page

Upvotes: -2

user1228
user1228

Reputation:

The simplest way is to create an iframe and set the source to the URL of the PDF.

(ducks mad HTML designers) Done it myself, works fine, cross browser (crawls into bunker).

Upvotes: 21

ftcosta
ftcosta

Reputation: 61

As long as you host the PDF the target attribute is the way to go. In other words, for relative files, using the target attribute with _blank value will work just fine. 

<e>
  <a target="_blank" alt="StackExchange Handbook" title="StackExchange Handbook"
     href="pdfs/StackExchange_Handbook.pdf">StackExchange Handbook</a>

For absolute paths engines will go to the Unified Resource Locator and open it their. So, suppress the target attribute.

<e>
  <a alt="StackExchange Handbook" title="StackExchange Handbook"
     href="protocol://url/StackExchange_Handbook.pdf">StackExchange Handbook</a>

Browsers will make a rely good job in both cases.

Upvotes: 6

Hieu Le
Hieu Le

Reputation: 2136

You can use this code:

<embed src="http://domain.com/your_pdf.pdf" width="600" height="500" alt="pdf" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html">

Or use Google Docs embeddable PDF viewer:

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://domain.com/your_pdf.pdf&embedded=true" 
style="width:600px; height:500px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Upvotes: 3

bradenkeith
bradenkeith

Reputation: 2423

I use Google Docs embeddable PDF viewer. The docs don't have to be uploaded to Google Docs, but they do have to be available online.

<iframe src="http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://path.com/to/your/pdf.pdf&embedded=true" 
style="width:600px; height:500px;" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Upvotes: 134

Nils Magne Lunde
Nils Magne Lunde

Reputation: 1824

You can also embed using JavaScript through a third-party solution like PDFObject.

Upvotes: 2

jschorr
jschorr

Reputation: 3054

The browser's plugin controls those settings, so you can't force it. However, you can do a simple <a href="whatver.pdf"> instead of <a href="whatever.pdf" target="_blank">.

Upvotes: 10

Quentin
Quentin

Reputation: 943128

The simple solution is to put it in an iframe and hope that the user has a plug-in that supports it.

(I don't, the Acrobat plugin has been such a resource hog and source of instability that I make a point to remove it from any browser that it touches).

The complicated, but relative popular solution is to display it in a flash applet.

Upvotes: 1

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