How to render PDF in Android

Question

In my application I will receive a byte stream and convert it to a pdf file in the phone memory. How do I render that to a pdf? And show it on an activity?

Answer 1

Some phones (like the Nexus One) come with a version of Quickoffice pre-installed so it may be as easy as sending the appropriate Intent once you've saved the file to the SD card.

public class OpenPdf extends Activity {
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        Button button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.OpenPdfButton);
        button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                File file = new File("/sdcard/example.pdf");

                if (file.exists()) {
                    Uri path = Uri.fromFile(file);
                    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
                    intent.setDataAndType(path, "application/pdf");
                    intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

                    try {
                        startActivity(intent);
                    } 
                    catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
                        Toast.makeText(OpenPdf.this, 
                            "No Application Available to View PDF", 
                            Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                    }
                }
            }
        });
    }
}

Answer 2

Open pdf file in webview.

public class MyPdfViewActivity extends Activity {

  @Override
  protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    WebView mWebView=new WebView(MyPdfViewActivity.this);
    mWebView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
    mWebView.getSettings().setPluginsEnabled(true);
    mWebView.loadUrl("https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url="+LinkTo);
    setContentView(mWebView);
  }
}

Answer 3

Android-Lollipop (api 21) introduce a new API : PdfRenderer

This API allows you to create a Bitmap from a page in a PDF document.

Shortly :

• get a seekable file descriptor from your pdf document :

    ParcelFileDescriptor fd = ParcelFileDescriptor.open(file, ParcelFileDescriptor.MODE_READ_ONLY)
  

• create the PdfRenderer

    PdfRenderer renderer = new PdfRenderer(fd);
  

• prepare the Bitmap

    Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(WIDTH, HEIGHT, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_4444);
  

• get the PdfRenderer.Page to render

    PdfRenderer.Page page = renderer.openPage(pageIndex);
  

• render the page on the prepared bitmap

    page.render(bitmap, null, null, PdfRenderer.Page.RENDER_MODE_FOR_DISPLAY);
  

• now you can do what you want with the bitmap.

• note that the 2 null args may allow you to clip some portion in the page and perform a transformation (using a Matrix) of the clip

• there is another rendering mode : RENDER_MODE_FOR_PRINT. If you need this mode there are some guidelines to use it properly : here are the details.