ASP.NET & PDF Files

Question

I'm trying to get a pdf file to display a pdf document in my aspx page with an iframe. I'm using the following code:

<iframe runat="server" id="testpdf" src="http://localhost:1114/pdfs/3211LD.pdf">
</iframe>

When I run the project, I just get an empty frame. However, when I paste the src (http://localhost:1114/pdfs/3211LD.pdf) into the address bar of a browser, it asks me to run/save the file. So I know my virtual directory is set up right.

So why won't it display in an iframe? Is there something wrong with my code?

Thanks, Jason

Found out you gotta be running at least IE8 (my VM had an old version) and an up-to-date copy of Adobe Reader. — , May 06 '11 at 22:55

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 04 '11 at 15:51

0

When a web broswer displays a PDF file, it is actually using an Adobe Reader plugin to render the contents. I have never seen the Adobe Reader plugin run from inside an iframe. I do not believe it works like that.

answered May 04 '11 at 15:51

Katie Kilian

6,815
5
41
64

I didn't either, but for the record: – May 06 '11 at 22:52
pnlPDF.Visible = True iFrameControl.ID = "PDFVeiwer" iFrameControl.Attributes.Add("width", "100%") iFrameControl.Attributes.Add("height", "400") iFrameControl.Attributes.Add("runat", "server") iFrameControl.Attributes.Add("scrolling", "auto") iFrameControl.Attributes.Add("align", "middle") iFrameControl.Attributes.Add("frameborder", "1") iFrameControl.Attributes.Add("src", "\\MyServer\Letter_UW_3644700.pdf") pnlPDF.Controls.Add(iFrameControl) – May 06 '11 at 22:54

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 04 '11 at 15:51

Youd be better of with an aspx page binary writing the pdf...

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        'Set the appropriate ContentType.
        Response.ContentType = "Application/pdf"
        'Get the physical path to the file.
        Dim FilePath As String = MapPath("acrobat.pdf")
        'Write the file directly to the HTTP output stream.
        Response.WriteFile(FilePath)
        Response.End()
End Sub

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 04 '11 at 16:09

You cannot totally control what the browser will do, but if you send out a PDF yourself, you can change the Content-disposition header to inline. Follow @BobTodd's code, but add

 Response.AddHeader("Content-disposition", "inline");

to request that the PDF be showed in the page.

Another way is to do it is to rasterize the PDF pages to png and use a <img> tags inside of a regular web page. You could do this with GhostScript.

Disclaimer: I work at Atalasoft. We make an ASP.NET image viewer web control and a PDF Reader add-on that converts PDF on the server automatically and displays it in web pages without needing Acrobat.

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

0

You need to use the tag to display a PDF within the page (and/or possibly the embed tag)

Here a question that helps in various ways: Recommended way to embed PDF in HTML?

edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

Community

1
1

answered May 04 '11 at 16:49

Mark Redman

24,079
20
92
147

ASP.NET & PDF Files

4 Answers4