Can we open pdf file using UIWebView on iOS?

Question

Can we open the pdf file from UIWebView?

alleus · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-26T12:31:21.690

Yes, this can be done with the UIWebView.

If you are trying to display a PDF file residing on a server somewhere, you can simply load it in your web view directly:

Objective-C

UIWebView *webView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10, 10, 200, 200)];

NSURL *targetURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://www.example.com/document.pdf"];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
[webView loadRequest:request];

[self.view addSubview:webView];

Swift

let webView = UIWebView(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: 200, height: 200))

let targetURL = NSURL(string: "https://www.example.com/document.pdf")! // This value is force-unwrapped for the sake of a compact example, do not do this in your code
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: targetURL)
webView.loadRequest(request)

view.addSubview(webView)

Or if you have a PDF file bundled with your application (in this example named "document.pdf"):

Objective-C

UIWebView *webView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10, 10, 200, 200)];

NSURL *targetURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"document" withExtension:@"pdf"];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
[webView loadRequest:request];

[self.view addSubview:webView];

Swift

let webView = UIWebView(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: 200, height: 200))

let targetURL = NSBundle.mainBundle().URLForResource("document", withExtension: "pdf")! // This value is force-unwrapped for the sake of a compact example, do not do this in your code
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: targetURL)
webView.loadRequest(request)

view.addSubview(webView)

You can find more information here: Technical QA1630: Using UIWebView to display select document types.

thanks a lot...alleus. can we save it in local document directory in iPhone ? — MohammedYakub M., May 14 '10 at 07:15
Yes, it's possible, but you have to use another method of fetching the document other than a WebView. Search for it here on Stack Overflow. For example: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2102267/downloading-a-file-from-url-and-saving-to-resources-on-iphone — alleus, May 14 '10 at 07:22
Here Pdf pages are listed in vertical direction.Is it possible to display them in horizontal direction, without vertical scroll. — AloSwift, Jan 03 '14 at 10:25
@MartinAlléus: can you please help me with this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21874538/failed-to-download-and-open-a-pdf-file-with-error-failed-to-find-pdf-header-in-i — Manthan, Feb 19 '14 at 08:16

Yunus Nedim Mehel · Answer 2 · 2019-04-29T09:04:11.513

12

UIWebviews can also load the .pdf using loadData method, if you acquire it as NSData:

[self.webView loadData:self.pdfData 
              MIMEType:@"application/pdf" 
      textEncodingName:@"UTF-8" 
               baseURL:nil];

edited Apr 29 '19 at 09:04

answered Nov 14 '14 at 13:42

Yunus Nedim Mehel

12,089
4
50
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score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 04 '12 at 11:53

use this for open pdf file in webview

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"mypdf" ofType:@"pdf"];
NSURL *targetURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
UIWebView *webView=[[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 300, 300)];
[[webView scrollView] setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0,500) animated:YES];
[webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"window.scrollTo(0.0, 50.0)"]];
[webView loadRequest:request];
[self.view addSubview:webView];
[webView release];

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited Jan 07 '17 at 08:49

NSString *folderName=[NSString stringWithFormat:@"/documents/%@",[tempDictLitrature objectForKey:@"folder"]];
NSString *fileName=[tempDictLitrature objectForKey:@"name"];
[self.navigationItem setTitle:fileName];
NSString *type=[tempDictLitrature objectForKey:@"type"];

NSString *path=[[NSBundle mainBundle]pathForResource:fileName ofType:type inDirectory:folderName];

NSURL *targetURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
webView=[[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 1024, 730)];
[webView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor lightGrayColor]];
webView.scalesPageToFit = YES;

[[webView scrollView] setContentOffset:CGPointZero animated:YES];
[webView stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"window.scrollTo(0.0, 50.0)"]];
[webView loadRequest:request];
[self.view addSubview:webView];

Please first create path of your pdf and convert it to url and use this code to load web view, its working for me so please use same in your code — dheerendra, Dec 09 '13 at 12:37

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 07 '17 at 08:06

An update to Martin Alléus's answer, to get the full screen whether it is a phone or a iPad without having to hard code:

CGRect rect = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds];
CGSize screenSize = rect.size;
UIWebView *webView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,0,screenSize.width,screenSize.height)];

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"pdf" ofType:@"pdf"];
NSURL *targetURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
[webView loadRequest:request];

[self.view addSubview:webView];

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 11 '16 at 13:38

2

Swift version:

if let docPath = NSBundle.mainBundle().pathForResource("sample", ofType: "pdf") {
    let docURL = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: docPath)
    webView.loadRequest(NSURLRequest(URL: docURL))
}

answered Jan 11 '16 at 13:38

SoftDesigner

5,640
3
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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 20 '18 at 07:33

Swift 4

     let webView = UIWebView(frame: view.bounds)
    let targetURL = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "sampleFileName", withExtension: "pdf")
    let request = URLRequest(url: targetURL!)
    webView.loadRequest(request)
    view.addSubview(webView)

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 30 '16 at 08:16

1

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"document" ofType:@"pdf"];
NSURL *targetURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
[webView loadRequest:request];

answered Jul 30 '16 at 08:16

Ved Rauniyar

1,539
14
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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 13 '16 at 05:43

UIWebView *pdfWebView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10, 10, 200, 200)];

NSURL *targetURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://unec.edu.az/application/uploads/2014/12/pdf-sample.pdf"];
    NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
    [pdfWebView loadRequest:request];
    [self.view addSubview:pdfWebView];

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 19 '19 at 07:07

WKWebView: I find this question to be the best place to let people know that they should start using WKWebview as UIWebView is now deprecated.

Objective C

WKWebView *webView = [[WKWebView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.frame];
webView.navigationDelegate = self;
NSURL *nsurl=[NSURL URLWithString:@"https://www.example.com/document.pdf"];
NSURLRequest *nsrequest=[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:nsurl];
[webView loadRequest:nsrequest];
[self.view addSubview:webView];

Swift

let myURLString = "https://www.example.com/document.pdf"
let url = NSURL(string: myURLString)
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: url!)  
let webView = WKWebView(frame: self.view.frame)
webView.navigationDelegate = self
webView.loadRequest(request)
view.addSubview(webView)

I haven't copied this code directly from Xcode, so it might, it might contain some syntax error. Please check while using it.

Can we open pdf file using UIWebView on iOS?

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