Catalog.getPageDict
to an asynchronous method
Besides converting `Catalog.getPageDict` to an `async` method, thus simplifying the code, this patch also allows us to pro-actively fix a existing issue. Note how we're looking up References in such a way that `MissingDataException`s won't cause trouble, however it's *technically possible* that the entries (i.e. /Count, /Kids, and /Type) in a /Pages Dictionary could actually be indirect objects as well. In the existing code this could lead to *some*, or even all, pages failing to load/render as intended. In practice that doesn't *appear* to happen in real-world PDF documents, but given all the weird things that PDF software do I'd prefer to fix this pro-actively (rather than waiting for a bug report). With `Catalog.getPageDict` being `async` this is now really simple to address, however I didn't want to introduce a bunch more *unconditional* asynchronicity in this method if it could be avoided (since that could slow things down). Hence we'll *synchronously* lookup the *raw* data in a /Pages Dictionary, and only fallback to asynchronous data lookup when a Reference was encountered. In addition to the above, this patch also makes the following notable changes: - Let `Catalog.getPageDict` *consistently* reject with the actual error, regardless of what data we're fetching. Previously we'd "swallow" the actual errors except when looking up Dictionary entries, which is inconsistent and thus seem unfortunate. As can be seen from the updated unit-tests this change is API-observable, hence why the patch is tagged `[api-minor]`. - Improve the consistency of the Dictionary /Type-checks in both the `Catalog.getPageDict` and `Catalog.getAllPageDicts` methods. In `Catalog.getPageDict` there's a fallback code-path where we're *incorrectly* checking the /Page Dictionary for a /Contents-entry, which is wrong since a /Page Dictionary doesn't need to have a /Contents-entry in order to be valid. For consistency the `Catalog.getAllPageDicts` method is also updated to handle errors in the /Type-lookup correctly. - Reduce the `PagesCountLimit.PAUSE_EAGER_PAGE_INIT` viewer constant, to further improve loading/rendering performance of the *second* page during initialization of very long documents; PR 14359 follow-up.
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,
nullish coalescing, and private class
fields/methods.
-
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 > Extension
and 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