Using an iframe to "render" a PDF will not work on all browsers; it depends on how the browser handles PDF files. Some browsers (such as Firefox and Chrome) have a built-in PDF rendered which allows them to display the PDF inline where as some older browsers (perhaps older versions of IE attempt to download the file instead).
Instead, I recommend checking out PDFObject which is a Javascript library to embed PDFs in HTML files. It handles browser compatibility pretty well and will most likely work on IE8.
In your HTML, you could set up a div to display the PDFs:
<div id="pdfRenderer"></div>
Then, you can have Javascript code to embed a PDF in that div:
var pdf = new PDFObject({
url: "https://something.com/HTC_One_XL_User_Guide.pdf",
id: "pdfRendered",
pdfOpenParams: {
view: "FitH"
}
}).embed("pdfRenderer");
Display pdf in Web Page using iframe, embed, or object?
[OJS 3.1.1.4] How to embed a pdf file in an iFrame
Embedding a SharePoint PDF document in an iframe shows a blurry document at the same zoom level compared to opening the document directly in SharePoint
html - IE8 embedded PDF iframe - Stack Overflow
Videos
Using an iframe to "render" a PDF will not work on all browsers; it depends on how the browser handles PDF files. Some browsers (such as Firefox and Chrome) have a built-in PDF rendered which allows them to display the PDF inline where as some older browsers (perhaps older versions of IE attempt to download the file instead).
Instead, I recommend checking out PDFObject which is a Javascript library to embed PDFs in HTML files. It handles browser compatibility pretty well and will most likely work on IE8.
In your HTML, you could set up a div to display the PDFs:
<div id="pdfRenderer"></div>
Then, you can have Javascript code to embed a PDF in that div:
var pdf = new PDFObject({
url: "https://something.com/HTC_One_XL_User_Guide.pdf",
id: "pdfRendered",
pdfOpenParams: {
view: "FitH"
}
}).embed("pdfRenderer");
This is the code to link an HTTP(S) accessible PDF from an <iframe>:
<iframe src="https://research.google.com/pubs/archive/44678.pdf"
width="800" height="600">
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/cEuZ3/1545/
EDIT: and you can use Javascript, from the <a> tag (onclick event) to set iFrame' SRC attribute at run-time...
EDIT 2: Apparently, it is a bug (but there are workarounds):
PDF files do not open in Internet Explorer with Adobe Reader 10.0 - users get an empty gray screen. How can I fix this for my users?
I'm trying to display a PDF in my web page but not have it open a new page. I've been looking at embed, iframe, and object tags and have seen their pros and cons and I'm more or less pushing for iframe. I select the file from a treeview that gets the files from a REST API and I want to add the selected file to the src of the iframe but don't know exactly how to do it. I was able to make it so the file opens to its own page but not sure about embedding it. Any advice?
Here's my code to display the file in its own page. filePath is the full path for the file and selectFile is just the file name itself.
Dim user As WebClient = New WebClient()
Dim buffer As Byte() = user.DownloadData(filePath)
If Not buffer Is Nothing Then
Response.AddHeader("content-length", buffer.Length.ToString())
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=" + selectFile)
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
Response.BinaryWrite(buffer)
End If
It's downloaded probably because there is not Adobe Reader plug-in installed. In this case, IE (it doesn't matter which version) doesn't know how to render it, and it'll simply download the file (Chrome, for example, has its own embedded PDF renderer).
If you want to try to detect PDF support you could:
!!navigator.mimeTypes["application/pdf"]?.enabledPlugin(now deprecated, possibly supported only in some browsers).navigator.pdfViewerEnabled(live standard, it might change and it's not currently widely supported).
2021: nowadays the original answer is definitely outdated. Unless you need to support relatively old browsers then you should simply use <object> (eventually with a fallback) and leave it at that.
That said. <iframe> is not best way to display a PDF (do not forget compatibility with mobile browsers, for example Safari). Some browsers will always open that file inside an external application (or in another browser window). Best and most compatible way I found is a little bit tricky but works on all browsers I tried (even pretty outdated):
Keep your <iframe> but do not display a PDF inside it, it'll be filled with an HTML page that consists of an <object> tag. Create an HTML wrapping page for your PDF, it should look like this:
<html>
<body>
<object data="your_url_to_pdf" type="application/pdf">
<div>No online PDF viewer installed</div>
</object>
</body>
</html>
Of course, you still need the appropriate plug-in installed in the browser. Also, look at this post if you need to support Safari on mobile devices.
Why an HTML page? So you can provide a fallback if PDF viewer isn't supported. Internal viewer, plain HTML error messages/options, and so on...
It's tricky to check PDF support so that you may provide an alternate viewer for your customers, take a look at PDF.JS project; it's pretty good but rendering quality - for desktop browsers - isn't as good as a native PDF renderer (I didn't see any difference in mobile browsers because of screen size, I suppose).
If the browser has a pdf plugin installed it executes the object, if not it uses Google's PDF Viewer to display it as plain HTML:
<object data="your_url_to_pdf" type="application/pdf">
<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=your_url_to_pdf&embedded=true"></iframe>
</object>