I got very frustrated when I realized that android is not able to display pdfs (in a webview or whatever) out-of-the-box.
So my question, are there any (os) jars or classes to display a pdf document within an app?
Has anybody experience with using some of the standard java pdf viewer libraries on Android? The libraries don't need to be free, only usable with android phones.
I heard that itext got ported over to android. Has one of you did something with it yet?
Source: Tips4all, CCNA FINAL EXAM
Displaying a PDF document is a rather complex operation. I'll be stunned if there's a JAR for doing that in Android any time soon that is reasonably feature-complete. If you wanted to try, you could start with this project.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, you can use PackageManager to see if the user has an app installed that views PDFs, and if so, launch into that. There are a few of these available.
If you would like to add a feature in your android app to view PDF documents, I would suggest you to compile and use library within this project. I've had the exact same problem as you in the past and searched for the reliable libraries to support that kind of feature into my app and finally found it.
ReplyDeleteThe library, however, it's a bit tricky to use. It's not a standard Java jar library but rather it's JNI
library (C language) for Android, and you need to compile it yourself if you decide to use it within your application. But the results are better than most of the other jar pdf libraries out there if you're planning to use it in Android platform (i've had tested several pdf libraries/projects including andpdf & pdfbox). I've used it myself and it has fast and good quality rendering.
Make sure to follow the instructions on the site on how to compile the core libraries.
If you are looking to embed the PDF as a view in your application, then you can try this vudroid.
ReplyDeleteI have been using this by including this project as a library and some minor tweaks to the library. They have provided a PDFView and a service which renders the view. Works for me; a bit slow though.
You can also use google docs viewer if your files are on the web. Works great for me.
Hope that helps.