Display PDF using PDFViewCTRL in Android

PDFViewCtrl is a ViewGroup that can be embedded in any layout. It encapsulates a rich set of functionalities for interactive viewing of PDF documents, including multi-threaded rendering, PDF rendering settings, scrolling, zooming, page navigation, different page viewing modes, coordinates conversion, text selection, text search, etc.

linkView documents using PDFViewCtrl

In this tutorial you will display a PDF file in your activity by using PDFViewCtrl.

1. In your AndroidManifest.xml, make sure you enable largeHeap in the <application> tag. Also, add a custom theme and set the android:windowSoftInputMode:"adjustPan" attribute in the <activity> tag as follow:

   <application
       ...
       android:name="androidx.multidex.MultiDexApplication"
       android:largeHeap="true"
       android:usesCleartextTraffic="true">
       ...
       <activity
           ...
           android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustPan"
           android:theme="@style/PDFTronAppTheme"/>
   </application>

   If your app is targeting Android SDK version 28 or higher, please also set the android:usesCleartextTraffic="true" attribute in your application tag.

2. If you would like to customize the appearance of the viewer activity, define PDFTronAppTheme for your activity in res/values/styles.xml:

   <resources>
   <style name="PDFTronAppTheme" parent="PDFTronAppThemeBase">
       <item name="colorPrimary">#3F51B5</item>
       <item name="colorPrimaryDark">#303F9F</item>
       <item name="colorAccent">#FF4081</item>
       <!-- Action bar -->
       <item name="actionModeBackground">?attr/colorPrimary</item>
       <item name="windowActionModeOverlay">true</item>
   </style>
   </resources>

   You can learn more about this in the customize the viewer's theme guide.

   PDFViewCtrl uses the AppCompat theme for material colors. Make sure that the value of android:theme in your <activity> tag also extends the AppCompat theme.

3. Now, add PDFViewCtrl to your activity's XML layout. For example:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <FrameLayout
       xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       android:layout_width="match_parent"
       android:layout_height="match_parent">
   
       <pdftron.pdf.PDFViewCtrl
           android:id="@+id/pdfviewctrl"
           android:layout_width="match_parent"
           android:layout_height="match_parent"
           android:scrollbars="vertical|horizontal"/>
   
   </FrameLayout>

4. In your activity, get a reference to PDFViewCtrl after inflating the layout and call AppUtils.SetupPDFViewCtrl.

   using pdftron.PDF;
   using pdftron.PDF.Config;
   using pdftron.PDF.Tools.Utils;
   
   private PDFViewCtrl mPdfViewCtrl;
   
   protected override void OnCreate(Bundle bundle)
   {
       base.OnCreate(bundle);
       SetContentView(Resource.Layout.Main);
   
       mPdfViewCtrl = FindViewById<PDFViewCtrl>(Resource.Id.pdfviewctrl);
       AppUtils.SetupPDFViewCtrl(mPdfViewCtrl);
   }

5. Next, choose a document to display by using the following options:

   linkView from resource

   Add a sample PDF to src/main/res/raw folder, then call:

   using pdftron.PDF;
   using pdftron.PDF.Config;
   using pdftron.PDF.Tools.Utils;
   using Android.Net;
   
   private PDFDoc mPdfDoc;
   
   void ViewFromResource(int resourceId, string fileName)
   {
       var file = Utils.CopyResourceToLocal(this, resourceId, fileName, ".pdf");
       mPdfDoc = new PDFDoc(file.AbsolutePath);
       mPdfViewCtrl.SetDoc(mPdfDoc);
       // Alternatively, you can open the document using Uri:
       // mPdfDoc = mPdfViewCtrl.OpenPDFUri(Uri.FromFile(file), "");
   }

   linkView from local device storage

   To access device storage, add the following permissions to the AndroidManifest.xml file in the <manifest> tag (outside of the <application> tag):

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

   Then call:

   using pdftron.PDF;
   using pdftron.PDF.Config;
   using pdftron.PDF.Tools.Utils;
   using Android.Net;
   
   private PDFDoc mPdfDoc;
   
   void ViewFromLocalStorage(string myFilePath)
   {
       mPdfDoc = new PDFDoc(myFilePath);
       mPdfViewCtrl.SetDoc(mPdfDoc);
       // Alternatively, you can open the document using Uri:
       // mPdfDoc = mPdfViewCtrl.OpenPDFUri(Uri.FromFile(new Java.IO.File(myFilePath)), null);
   }

   linkView from content uri

   using Android.Net;
   
   private PDFDoc mPdfDoc;
   
   void ViewFromContentUri(Uri contentUri)
   {
       mPdfDoc = mPdfViewCtrl.OpenPDFUri(contentUri, null);
   }

   linkView from HTTP/HTTPS

   To access via the internet, add the following permissions to the AndroidManifest.xml file in the <manifest> tag (outside of the <application> tag):

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

   Then call:

   void ViewFromHttpUrl(string myHttpUrl)
   {
       pdfViewCtrl.OpenUrlAsync(myHttpUrl, null, null, null);
       // Alternatively, you can open the document using Uri:
       // mPdfViewCtrl.OpenPDFUri(Android.Net.Uri.Parse(myHttpUrl), null);
   }

linkManaging lifecycle

It is extremely important that you follow the Android activity/fragment lifecycle and clean up PDFViewCtrl and PDFDoc properly. Make sure you have the following in lifecycle callbacks:

// ...
protected override void OnPause()
{
    base.OnPause();
    mPdfViewCtrl?.Pause();
}

protected override void OnResume()
{
    base.OnResume();
    mPdfViewCtrl?.Resume();
}

protected override void OnDestroy()
{
    base.OnDestroy();
    mPdfViewCtrl?.Destroy();
    mPdfDoc?.Close();
}

linkNext steps

• Want to annotate on PDF files in PDFViewCtrl? Check out the Setup ToolManager guide.
• Want to display non-PDF files in PDFViewCtrl? Check out the viewing other document types guide.