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I have an android application that shows pdf files from link using google doc's link prefix in WebView. Sometimes, not too often, instead of showing the content in webview it shows:

"You've reached the bandwith limit for viewing or downloading files that aren't in Google Docs format. Please try again later. You can also try to download the original codument by clicking here"

Google's support page tells that the bandwidth limit is 300 MB per hour, but the thing is my pdf files' size is 300-400 kb and it wasn't shown even a single time before. How can i avoid this problem? Or suggest any other ways to display pdf from link if possible. Thank you.

Jonathan Eustace
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Grecha
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  • It is very likely that Google Docs does calculate in the size of the rendered document (kind of plausible; they render the PDF and make it available as Google Docs document). In this case, you may easily get 1 MB per page, no matter how small or big the PDF is. And if you deal with badly prepared press-ready PDFs, you very easily can fill up your hourly quota. – Max Wyss May 08 '14 at 13:05
  • Thank you, Max, for your explanation. That sounds reasonable, and now it looks like I should better find another way for showing PDF files from URL. Btw, can you post your comment as an answer, so I could accept it as the best? – Grecha May 09 '14 at 14:26
  • @Grecha I saw the same problem. Did you find any other way of doing it? – Shobhit Puri Nov 07 '14 at 15:40
  • @ShobhitPuri, it seems there is still no easy solution for viewing a pdf from url. I recommend you to download the pdf file and save it in local storage as the most common way of doing this. You can try to implement your own caching if you need to. Also, you can use some server-side tools for converting pdf to png but it's much more complex, I think. – Grecha Nov 10 '14 at 13:37
  • Hi @MaxWyss and everyone else. I would also like to use the Google embed viewer in order to render PDF files which are stored on my own server (not on Google drive) into an Android web view. Certainly, I would like to avoid such a message like mentioned above. Do you know by accident if it will make a difference as my PDF files are not stored on Google Drive? And is the quota calculated per the app user's account or my own google account? What is your opinion? Thanks for any hint. – christin Sep 16 '15 at 13:18
  • @christin That sounds like an issue to get help from Google directly. First, whether it is possible to license their rendering technology, and then whether you have to use Google infrastructure anyways. If you can get the technology, and make it work on your server, then there should not be any Google infrastructure-imposed limitations. – Max Wyss Sep 16 '15 at 15:16
  • @MaxWyss : Thanks for your response. I posted a question in the Google Docs Forum, but have not yet received feedback. And the Google Docs Support team was not able to help me, yesterday. Actually the PDF are working in my app so far. I have just been concerned if there might be limitations as mentioned above. Thanks anyway for your opinion! – christin Sep 17 '15 at 14:55

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As wished by the original poster, the comment as an answer:

It is very likely that Google Docs does calculate in the size of the rendered document (kind of plausible; they render the PDF and make it available as Google Docs document). In this case, you may easily get 1 MB per page, no matter how small or big the PDF is. And if you deal with badly prepared press-ready PDFs, you very easily can fill up your hourly quota.

Max Wyss
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