One of the most requested features in Android is the ability to display a PDF document within a WebView. However, the WebView does not contain a PDF plugin that allow you to display a PDF document. One solution is to use an Intent object to launch a third-party app (such as Adobe Acrobat) which can handle the PDF document. However, this will transfer control over to the thrid-party app.
If you insists on displaying the PDF document within your own activity using a WebView, you can use the following trick. You can use Google Docs to open your PDF document and then load the URL of Google Docs using the WebView.
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
//setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
WebView webView=new WebView(MainActivity.this);
webView.getSettings().setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
webView.getSettings().setPluginState(PluginState.ON);
//---you need this to prevent the webview from
// launching another browser when a url
// redirection occurs---
webView.setWebViewClient(new Callback());
String pdfURL = "http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37098169/Course%20Brochures/AND101.pdf";
webView.loadUrl(
"http://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=" + pdfURL);
setContentView(webView);
}
private class Callback extends WebViewClient {
@Override
public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(
WebView view, String url) {
return(false);
}
}
The loaded PDF document will look something like this:
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