Show PDF in iOS from pdf data

Question

I'm trying to show a pdf in my iOS app using Swift. The response I get from the server is the pdf data and it's looking like this:

%PDF-1.4 %ÓôÌá 1 0 obj << /CreationDate(D:20180403085232+02'00') /Creator(PDFsharp 1.32.3057-g (www.pdfsharp.net)) /Producer(PDFsharp 1.32.3057-g (www.pdfsharp.net)) endobj 2 0 obj << /Type/Catalog /Pages 3 0 R endobj 3 0 obj << /Type/Pages /Count 3 /Kids[4 0 R 8 0 R 11 0 R] endobj 4 0 obj << /Type/Page /MediaBox[0 0 612 792] /Parent 3 0 R /Contents 5 0 R /Resources << /ProcSet [/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] /XObject << /I0 6 0 R /ExtGState << /GS0 7 0 R /Group << /CS/DeviceRGB /S/Transparency /I false /K false endobj 5 0 obj << /Length 260 /Filter/FlateDecode stream xœíRMK1½÷Wä˜M“&MîÂ¢àa]oâIEDF‚¿ÞÌÌº²ø¥”4y¯—´C©@¹ŽÆÐƒáú!ÏDpñZ†2€š W9#¾gNŽa“/…à4÷}©gåòŠàf§{¾.«õ–àî¹ˆWìÚ¡WÆT4Bµ †¡O·e[F>g^í=|UEw‡ª‚Ö$å(U‘ôÇ›„L¶ÜÑ™—~¤6•š'Ú9f”Pz›PŽ€¦¨"Ð±v_gly›Û÷Mä~.î] ™ÛëØˆ?œå€«Ul¡À™y_6þ»Aÿ—ÿ¤|èYòÿX`ìfÈ»ï³ÉõŠ¹·ò endstream endobj 6 0 obj << /Type/XObject /Subtype/Image /Length 5097196 /Filter/FlateDecode /Width 2511 /Height 3531 /BitsPerComponent 8 /ColorSpace/DeviceRGB /Interpolate true stream xœìÝ œ¤g]'ðîº«ïé9rÂáˆJAE%€ Š"ë‚FQ0 Ë!º» ¢‚+^ (h

I checked iOS-PDF-Reader and PDFKit but the main problem is that I don't understand how I can handle the response in the app.

fileprivate func loadPdf() {
    startIndication()
    var session: URLSession!
    let sessionConfig = URLSessionConfiguration.default
    session = URLSession(configuration: sessionConfig, delegate: nil, delegateQueue: nil)

    guard let URL = URL(string: "http://localhost:3000/pdf-download") else { return }

    let token = "Bearer " + self.user!.token!

    var request = URLRequest(url: URL)
    request.httpMethod = "POST"
    request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Type")
    request.addValue(token, forHTTPHeaderField: "Authorization")
    var invData:[String:Any] = [String:Any]()
    invData["INVID"] = invoice.ID
    request.httpBody = try! JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: invData, options: [])

    let task = session.dataTask(with: request) { (data:Data?, response: URLResponse?, error:Error?) in

        if error == nil {

            guard let data = data else { return }

            // I get the data but I cannot do anything with it

        } else {
            print("response: \(String(describing: error))")
        }
    }
    task.resume()
}

Any ideas? Thanks!

Also, you might want to look into the (En-)Codable protocol(s) which may make it easier (and saver) to encode your JSON :) — thisIsTheFoxe

thisIsTheFoxe thisIsTheFoxe · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-18T12:36:05

If you look at the documentation of PDFReader, you can create a PDF using data, and display it with a PDFViewController:

guard let data = data else { return }

let document = PDFDocument(fileData: data, fileName: "Sample PDF")!
//Display a PDFDocument
let readerController = PDFViewController.createNew(with: document)
navigationController?.pushViewController(readerController, animated: true)

or with PDFKit from Apple:

guard let data = data else, let doc = PDFDocument(data: data) { return }

let pdfView = PDFView()
pdfView.document = doc
/* present the View */

Show PDF in iOS from pdf data

1 Answers