a7f0301f21
*This patch is very similar to the recently fixed `renderInteractiveForms`-options, see PR 13867.* As far as I can tell, this *subtle* bug has existed ever since `AnnotationStorage`-support was first added in PR 12106 (a little over a year ago). The value of the `includeAnnotationStorage`-option, as passed to the `PDFPageProxy.render` method, will (potentially) affect the size/content of the operatorList that's returned from the worker (for documents with forms). Given that operatorLists will generally, unless they contain huge images, be cached in the API, repeated `PDFPageProxy.render` calls where the form-data has been changed by the user in between, can thus *wrongly* return a cached operatorList. In the viewer we're only using the `includeAnnotationStorage`-option when printing, which is probably why this has gone unnoticed for so long. Note that we, for performance reasons, don't cache printing-operatorLists in the API. However, there's nothing stopping an API-user from using the `includeAnnotationStorage`-option during "normal" rendering, which could thus result in *subtle* (and difficult to understand) rendering bugs. In order to handle this, we need to know if the `AnnotationStorage`-instance has been updated since the last `PDFPageProxy.render` call. The most "correct" solution would obviously be to create a hash of the `AnnotationStorage` contents, however that would require adding a bunch of code, complexity, and runtime overhead. Given that operatorList caching in the API doesn't have to be perfect[1], but only have to avoid *false* cache-hits, we can simplify things significantly be only keeping track of the last time that the `AnnotationStorage`-data was modified. *Please note:* While working on this patch, I also noticed that the `renderInteractiveForms`- and `includeAnnotationStorage`-options in the `PDFPageProxy.render` method are mutually exclusive.[2] Given that the various Annotation-related options in `PDFPageProxy.render` have been added at different times, this has unfortunately led to the current "messy" situation.[3] --- [1] Note how we're already not caching operatorLists for pages with *huge* images, in order to save memory, hence there's no guarantee that operatorLists will always be cached. [2] Setting both to `true` will result in undefined behaviour, since trying to insert `AnnotationStorage`-values into fields that are being excluded from the operatorList-building will obviously not work, which isn't at all clear from the documentation. [3] My intention is to try and fix this in a follow-up PR, and I've got a WIP patch locally, however it will result in a number of API-observable changes.
PDF.js 
PDF.js is a Portable Document Format (PDF) viewer that is built with HTML5.
PDF.js is community-driven and supported by Mozilla. Our goal is to create a general-purpose, web standards-based platform for parsing and rendering PDFs.
Contributing
PDF.js is an open source project and always looking for more contributors. To get involved, visit:
- Issue Reporting Guide
- Code Contribution Guide
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Good Beginner Bugs
- Projects
Feel free to stop by our Matrix room for questions or guidance.
Getting Started
Online demo
Please note that the "Modern browsers" version assumes native support for
features such as e.g. async/await, ReadableStream, optional chaining, and
nullish coalescing.
-
Modern browsers: https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/web/viewer.html
-
Older browsers: https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/legacy/web/viewer.html
Browser Extensions
Firefox
PDF.js is built into version 19+ of Firefox.
Chrome
- The official extension for Chrome can be installed from the Chrome Web Store. This extension is maintained by @Rob--W.
- Build Your Own - Get the code as explained below and issue
gulp chromium. Then open Chrome, go toTools > Extensionand load the (unpackaged) extension from the directorybuild/chromium.
Getting the Code
To get a local copy of the current code, clone it using git:
$ git clone https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js.git
$ cd pdf.js
Next, install Node.js via the official package or via nvm. You need to install the gulp package globally (see also gulp's getting started):
$ npm install -g gulp-cli
If everything worked out, install all dependencies for PDF.js:
$ npm install
Finally, you need to start a local web server as some browsers do not allow opening
PDF files using a file:// URL. Run:
$ gulp server
and then you can open:
Please keep in mind that this requires a modern and fully up-to-date browser; refer to Building PDF.js for non-development usage of the PDF.js library.
It is also possible to view all test PDF files on the right side by opening:
Building PDF.js
In order to bundle all src/ files into two production scripts and build the generic
viewer, run:
$ gulp generic
If you need to support older browsers, run:
$ gulp generic-legacy
This will generate pdf.js and pdf.worker.js in the build/generic/build/ directory (respectively build/generic-legacy/build/).
Both scripts are needed but only pdf.js needs to be included since pdf.worker.js will
be loaded by pdf.js. The PDF.js files are large and should be minified for production.
Using PDF.js in a web application
To use PDF.js in a web application you can choose to use a pre-built version of the library
or to build it from source. We supply pre-built versions for usage with NPM and Bower under
the pdfjs-dist name. For more information and examples please refer to the
wiki page on this subject.
Including via a CDN
PDF.js is hosted on several free CDNs:
- https://www.jsdelivr.com/package/npm/pdfjs-dist
- https://cdnjs.com/libraries/pdf.js
- https://unpkg.com/pdfjs-dist/
Learning
You can play with the PDF.js API directly from your browser using the live demos below:
More examples can be found in the examples folder. Some of them are using the pdfjs-dist package, which can be built and installed in this repo directory via gulp dist-install command.
For an introduction to the PDF.js code, check out the presentation by our contributor Julian Viereck:
More learning resources can be found at:
The API documentation can be found at:
Questions
Check out our FAQs and get answers to common questions:
Talk to us on Matrix:
File an issue:
Follow us on twitter: @pdfjs