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.

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:

   <!-- Include existing attributes in application -->
   <application
       android:name="androidx.multidex.MultiDexApplication"
       android:largeHeap="true"
       android:usesCleartextTraffic="true">
       <!-- Include existing attributes in activity -->
       <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 to open HTTP files in the viewer. If you are only working with HTTPS files, this is not required.

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:

   View 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), "");
   }

   View 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);
   }

   View from content uri

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

   View 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);
   }

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();
}

• 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.