Can we open pdf file using UIWebView on iOS?

Question

Can we open the pdf file from UIWebView?

Answer 1

Yes, this can be done with the UIWebView.

If you are trying to display a PDF file residing on a server somewhere, you can simply load it in your web view directly:

Objective-C

UIWebView *webView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10, 10, 200, 200)];

NSURL *targetURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://www.example.com/document.pdf"];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
[webView loadRequest:request];

[self.view addSubview:webView];

Swift

let webView = UIWebView(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: 200, height: 200))

let targetURL = NSURL(string: "https://www.example.com/document.pdf")! // This value is force-unwrapped for the sake of a compact example, do not do this in your code
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: targetURL)
webView.loadRequest(request)

view.addSubview(webView)

Or if you have a PDF file bundled with your application (in this example named "document.pdf"):

Objective-C

UIWebView *webView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10, 10, 200, 200)];

NSURL *targetURL = [[NSBundle mainBundle] URLForResource:@"document" withExtension:@"pdf"];
NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:targetURL];
[webView loadRequest:request];

[self.view addSubview:webView];

Swift

let webView = UIWebView(frame: CGRect(x: 10, y: 10, width: 200, height: 200))

let targetURL = NSBundle.mainBundle().URLForResource("document", withExtension: "pdf")! // This value is force-unwrapped for the sake of a compact example, do not do this in your code
let request = NSURLRequest(URL: targetURL)
webView.loadRequest(request)

view.addSubview(webView)

You can find more information here: Technical QA1630: Using UIWebView to display select document types.