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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

• Open PDF in a WebView
• Open a pdf file inside a webview.

Answer 3

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 :)

Answer 4

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();
}

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

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

Answer 8

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>

Answer 9

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.