PDFTron technology brings smooth, flexible and stand-alone document viewing and editing solutions for local and server codebases setup using Cordova for iOS, Android and Windows as well as various browsers.

Cordova can be used with PDFTron technology in two ways:

• WebViewer
• Native Plugin

PDTron SDK is trusted by thousands of innovative startups, governments, and Fortune 500 businesses (see customers). It is built from the ground up and is not dependent on any external third-party open-source software with support available from Developers and Solution Engineers.

linkImplementation

Depending on your requirements and preferred development environment, PDFTron can be integrated into a Cordova project through our native iOS or Android plugin, as well as through our pure JavaScript library (WebViewer).

The relative strengths of each approach are outlined below. This will help you decide which approach with Cordova best suits your needs.

linkRelative strengths of WebViewer

• Extensive API: The full WebViewer API is immediately available. (The native plugins currently expose a subset of their APIS to JavaScript.)
• Identical API: The API used for a website written using WebViewer will be 100% identical that used in the Ionic/Cordova app.
• Identical UI: The UI is the same across all devices (rather than adopting the platform's UI norms).
• .xod files: The WebViewer can open and render .xod files, which are PDF files that have been optimized for web-viewing. (PDF files can also be rendered directly, but with degradation in performance.)

linkRelative strengths of the Native Plugin

• Performance: true native performance for scrolling, zooming and animations.
• Appearance: native controls that appear and behave in accordance with platform norms and possibly user expectations.
• Rendering speed: good rendering speed on all devices, including older models with limited memory.
• PDF streaming: The native plugin supports streaming, where a remote PDF is viewable before it has been downloaded in its entirety, and can even be configured to only download the pages of a PDF that are actually viewed by the user, saving on mobile data usage.

linkWebViewer

WebViewer is a pure client-side JavaScript library to view, annotate and edit documents. It is compatible with any JavaScript framework, including Cordova, by using a DOM element to place the document viewing component. WebViewer has a pre-built Cordova sample specifically designed for integrating into a Cordova project.

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PDFTron’s fully supported WebViewer is trusted by thousands of innovative startups, governments, and Fortune 500 businesses (see customers). PDFTron technology is built from the ground up and is not dependent on any external third-party open-source software.

Commonly used with Cordova for:

• Desktop Browsers
• Mobile Browsers
• Windows Desktop Applications

linkCustomizable

• UI source code is included (built in React)
• Create custom annotations
• Change annotation appearance
• Customize annotation behaviour
• Internationalization through JSON language files
• Rich set of APIs for more advanced customization

linkFile Type Support - Web

• PDF, PDF/A
• DOCX, XLSX, PPTX (MS Office software or licenses are not required)
• JPG, PNG

linkBrowser Support

linkNative Plugin

The Native Plugin provides identical JavaScript interfaces to PDFTron's native mobile SDKs for iOS and Android which are designed to mirror the WebViewer API.

The NativeViewer is a part of the Native Plugin and provides a sizable subset of the WebViewer API and functionality and is more consistent with mobile performance and user expectations. For iOS, it exposes a PTDocumentViewController, and for Android, it exposes a PdfViewCtrlTabHostFragment.

Get the Cordova source code

Commonly used with Cordova for:

• Android Applications
• iOS Applications

linkOS Support

• Android 4.1+ (API Level 16)
• iOS 9+

linkFile Type Support - Native

linkPDF

linkOffice

^ MS Office software or licenses are not needed to support Word, Excel, and PowerPoint file types.

linkImage

linkOther

linkFree Trial

• Unlimited usage
• Guidance and support from Solution Engineers

linkGitHub Samples

• WebViewer & Cordova
• iOS and Android Native Cordova Plugin