How to open local PDF file in WebView in Android?

Question

I want to open local (SD card) PDF file in a WebView.

I already tried this:

webview = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webview); webview.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true); webview.getSettings().setPluginsEnabled(true); webview.getSettings().setAllowFileAccess(true); File file = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/test.pdf"); final Uri uri = Uri.fromFile(file); webview.loadUrl(uri.toString());

But it's still not opening it, so let me know how I can open a PDF in WebView?

Try this webview.loadUrl("docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=http://myurl.com/…); — Tofeeq Ahmad
– Tofeeq Ahmad, Commented Jan 24, 2013 at 9:00

Lepidopteron · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-04 07:09:06Z

I know, this question is old.

But I really like the approach of Xamarin to make use of the pdf.js from Mozilla. It works on older Android versions, you don't need a special PDF Viewer app for this and you can easily display a PDF inside of your apps views hierarchy.

Git for this: https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/

Additional default options (like standard zoom): https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/wiki/Viewer-options

Just add the pdfjs files to your Assets directory:

And call it the following way:

// Assuming you got your pdf file: File file = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/test.pdf"); webview = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webview); WebSettings settings = webview.getSettings(); settings.setJavaScriptEnabled(true); settings.setAllowFileAccessFromFileURLs(true); settings.setAllowUniversalAccessFromFileURLs(true); settings.setBuiltInZoomControls(true); webview.setWebChromeClient(new WebChromeClient()); webview.loadUrl("file:///android_asset/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=" + file.getAbsolutePath() + "#zoom=page-width");

Cool thing: If you want to reduce the amount of functionalities / controls. Go to the Assets/pdfjs/web/viewer.html file and mark certain controls as hidden. With

style="display: none;"

E.g. If you don't like the right toolbar:

<div id="toolbarViewerRight" style="display: none;">...</div>

Update

'URL scheme "file" is not supported'

Might occur for newer versions of pdfjs. With version 1.8.188 this error does not appear.

@CGR You will need a file‘s reference, which also needs to be available for the script, so maybe you need to copy the file locally from the assets folder first: stackoverflow.com/a/38504987
Lepidopteron thanks a lot, it worked great. I have pdf in assets, I copied it in private folder inside my app and opened it from there - no problems, no permissions mess. Used latest pdfjs 1.8.188
@RadekKłos I was wondering the same and so I tried an older version of pdfjs, 1.8.188 version, mentioned in a comment above. And it worked. Instead it doesn't work with the latest version 2.1.266. So the URL scheme "file" not supported is a recent change.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:54:33Z

5

As @Sameer replied in your comment above, the only solution to view PDF in webview is through Google Docs' online viewer which will render and send back a readable version to your app.

Previously discussed here

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:54

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Mar 6, 2013 at 9:02

James Wong

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2 Comments

James Wong Over a year ago

@androidsanta nop, it was to be loaded from web.

tryp Over a year ago

This work only with a remote PDF. If you want to open a local file like @girishce26, you have to use the CSmith's solution or this external plugin github.com/JoanZapata/android-pdfview

pallav bohara · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-22 06:55:31Z

After going through several posts I came across this simple answer on Quora which pretty much do the work. Following are steps:-

Add this dependency in your gradle file:

compile 'com.github.barteksc:android-pdf-viewer:2.0.3'

activity_main.xml

 <com.github.barteksc.pdfviewer.PDFView android:id="@+id/pdfView" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" />

MainActivity.java

package pdfviewer.pdfviewer; import android.app.Activity; import android.os.Bundle; import android.util.Log; import com.github.barteksc.pdfviewer.PDFView; import com.github.barteksc.pdfviewer.listener.OnLoadCompleteListener; import com.github.barteksc.pdfviewer.listener.OnPageChangeListener; import com.github.barteksc.pdfviewer.scroll.DefaultScrollHandle; import com.shockwave.pdfium.PdfDocument; import java.util.List; public class MainActivity extends Activity implements OnPageChangeListener,OnLoadCompleteListener{ private static final String TAG = MainActivity.class.getSimpleName(); public static final String SAMPLE_FILE = "sample_pdf.pdf"; PDFView pdfView; Integer pageNumber = 0; String pdfFileName; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); pdfView= (PDFView)findViewById(R.id.pdfView); displayFromAsset(SAMPLE_FILE); } private void displayFromAsset(String assetFileName) { pdfFileName = assetFileName; pdfView.fromAsset(SAMPLE_FILE) .defaultPage(pageNumber) .enableSwipe(true) .swipeHorizontal(false) .onPageChange(this) .enableAnnotationRendering(true) .onLoad(this) .scrollHandle(new DefaultScrollHandle(this)) .load(); } @Override public void onPageChanged(int page, int pageCount) { pageNumber = page; setTitle(String.format("%s %s / %s", pdfFileName, page + 1, pageCount)); } @Override public void loadComplete(int nbPages) { PdfDocument.Meta meta = pdfView.getDocumentMeta(); printBookmarksTree(pdfView.getTableOfContents(), "-"); } public void printBookmarksTree(List<PdfDocument.Bookmark> tree, String sep) { for (PdfDocument.Bookmark b : tree) { Log.e(TAG, String.format("%s %s, p %d", sep, b.getTitle(), b.getPageIdx())); if (b.hasChildren()) { printBookmarksTree(b.getChildren(), sep + "-"); } } } }

You have to make sure that your asset folder contains sample_pdf.pdf (Library also support opening pdf from Uri and SDCard)

Happy coding :)

CSmith · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-23 13:51:16Z

You cannot. Using an Intent, you can open the PDF in an external viewer application like Acrobat Reader:

try { Intent intentUrl = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW); intentUrl.setDataAndType(uri, "application/pdf"); intentUrl.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP); mActivity.startActivity(intentUrl); } catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) { Toast.makeText(mActivity, "No PDF Viewer Installed", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show(); }

Aniruddha K.M · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-11 08:43:10Z

From android OS 5.0(lollipop) on-wards you can use PdfRenderer instead of webview/library. You can use this class to show pdf's within the app.

If you want to support OS lower than that you can use a library/other approach mentioned in other answer as there is no native support.

Read more about it from the docs, you can also refer this example

Himanshu Sharma · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-02 07:44:43Z

WebView don't provide direct functionality to open PDF from local storage. You can open pdf in external PDFViewer applications.

Wait it will take user to different application.

Now without using any extra library to open a PDF we can use PdfRenderer class to render a PDF.

PdfRenderer can render pdf on bitmap. Bitmap can be drawn to Image View to show the PDF in your application.

// create a new renderer PdfRenderer renderer = new PdfRenderer(getSeekableFileDescriptor()); // let us just render all pages final int pageCount = renderer.getPageCount(); for (int i = 0; i < pageCount; i++) { Page page = renderer.openPage(i); // say we render for showing on the screen page.render(mBitmap, null, null, Page.RENDER_MODE_FOR_DISPLAY); // do stuff with the bitmap // close the page page.close(); } // close the renderer renderer.close();

Read more about it from the docs.

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. Also, the same link already exists in a better-expanded answer. - From Review

Boken · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-02 14:41:05Z

you can use the SkewPdfView library for loading pdf from remote or local urls.

First of all, Add following in your root build.gradle:

allprojects { repositories { ... maven { url 'https://jitpack.io' } } }

and add the SkewPdfView Library as:

dependencies { implementation 'com.github.naya-aastra:SkewPdfView:1.1' }

Now Include SkewPdfView in your layout:

<com.nayaastra.skewpdfview.SkewPdfView android:id="@+id/skewPdfView" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent"/>

Save all the local files in assets folder and then use SkewPdfView as follows. Load a PDF file programmatically as:

SkewPdfView skewPdfView; skewPdfView = findViewById(R.id.skewPdfView); String pdfLink = "LINK TO ASSET FILE"; skewPdfView.loadPdf(pdfLink);

P.S. link of SkewPdfView library

SkewPdfView Github Page

Rishabh · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-01 14:07:05Z

WebView can easily be used for displaying PDF file from a web url but if you have local PDF file, then it becomes a pain.

In my case i first stored a reference of my local file:-

File file = new File(getExternalFilesDir(null),"your_pdf_file.pdf");

Then i obtained file path URI of my local PDF file using FileProvider and started an intent for opening it using existing applications that can open PDF documents:-

try{ Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW); intent.setDataAndType(FileProvider.getUriForFile(BaseActivity.this,BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID +".provider",file), "application/pdf"); intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP); intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION); startActivity(intent); } catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) { Toast.makeText(BaseActivity.this,"No Application Available to View PDF",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); }

Also to use FileProvider API, you need to declare it in manifest as:-

 <provider android:name="androidx.core.content.FileProvider" android:authorities="${applicationId}.provider" android:exported="false" android:grantUriPermissions="true"> <meta-data android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS" android:resource="@xml/file_paths" /> </provider>

And declare file_paths.xml under XML resource folder as:-

<paths> <external-path name="external_files" path="."/> </paths>

Grecha · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-17 09:39:57Z

WebView can not open a .pdf file. The most popular solution (google docs' url + your url in WebView) just shows you converted by google docs pictures. However there is still no simple way to open .pdf from url.

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