Make embedded PDF scrollable in iPad

Question

For some reason the iPad safari browser does not handle embedded PDFs well. PDFs view fine on their own when launched standalone, but not with the object tag. The problem is t

Answer 1

I have tried for years to find a solution to this problem. I will try to save anyone looking for it some time: THERE IS NO SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM. The way Safari handles PDF rendering is hopelessly in conflict with the entire concept of embedding a PDF in a webpage. Moreover, all browsers on an iPad are REQUIRED to use the Safari rendering engine, so you won't even be able to instruct users to install another browser.

The only way to embed a PDF with decent results is to use a 3rd party rendering utility of some sort. There are some jQuery solutions out there, but for my purposes, I found the simplest way to do it was to embed a google doc viewer link in an object or iframe tag. This is relatively simple to do, and you can find simple instructions here:

How to view Google drive pdf link in iframe

This solution includes good display rendering and simple pagination and zoom controls. Be sure to include the &embedded=true option if you are embedding it in an iframe or object tag or it won't work. The viewer requires a publicly accessible url to your document, so if you have security concerns, like me, you will need to write a web service to serve the document up from a single use token.

There is a good webpage that lists several other options should you be looking for something a little more robust:

http://www.jqueryrain.com/2012/09/best-jquery-pdf-viewer-plugin-examples/