How to open Adobe Reader file from another native IOS application?

[Pavel_Savenkov]

I use iPad application to catalog my eBooks. It does not store eBooks itselves but allows to specify iOS link to open external file from another iPad application. How such link would look like in case of Adobe Reader? As far as I understood Adobe should register somewhat "URL Scheme". Note: file names may contain whitespaces. For example: "Java Concurrency In Practice.pdf".

[Pat Wibbeler]

We do register to handle PDF's and you should see us in the "Open In..." dialog that many apps support. If you don't see us after you've installed the Reader, it's possible that we're scrolled to the bottom of the list. It's not immediately obvious that the open in list is scrollable (with a swipe up). If you still can't see us, can you please let me know which app you're trying to view the PDF from?

Thank you!

Pat

[PavelSavenkov1]

Pat,

May be I was not quite specific, but my question was completely different. I'll give you an example based on another pdf reader - GoodReader.

I imported file "OReilly - Java RMI.pdf" into GoodReader. GoodReader exposes this file through URL, which looks like this:

gropen://0/OReilly%20-%20Java%20RMI.pdf?cc=1

I use this URL from "Book Crawler" application to open and browse eBook in GoodReader. Make a note that "Book Crawler" never imports eBook file.

Can Adobe Reader expose its eBooks using similar URL's?

[Pat Wibbeler]

I understand now. What do you use this for? To be honest, this is the first time I've heard this request (or seen this feature in GoodReader). It helps us to understand how people would use this when considering whether or not to add a feature to the product. Every feature adds a little complexity and we prefer to add features that have broad application.

Thanks for your feedback!

Pat

[Guest]

Not to hijack the conversation but I can explain why this would be useful for both the above case and another.

What I believe Pavel is talking about is setting up a "URL Scheme" for the Adobe Acrobat iOS application so that you can easily open a PDF specifically in Adobe Acrobat iOS from other native applications and even from web applications opened within Safari. This is particularly useful if your application requires some of the specific features in Adobe Reader iOS to grant them the best experience possible and you want to encourage this.

Another case: If you're using Adobe Livecycle's document security modules (that encrypts PDF files so that Adobe Acrobat must "phone home" to decrypt and view the document), these PDF's can only be viewed inside the Adobe Acrobat application and appear as blank in most other PDF readers. Having a URL scheme allows your application utilising this functionality to have a 1 click step to view the PDF rather than the current non-user friendly process:

- Within Safari, touch the PDF link (appears as blank in the default Safari PDF reader, which in itself is confusing)

  - Touch "Open in..."

  - Touch "Adobe Acrobat"

We have an immediate need for this functionality for the example above. I can resubmit it in a separate post if necessary.

[Pat Wibbeler]

Tim, I think Pavel is actually looking for a url to identify a document that is already in the Adobe Reader, so that he can paste the link in another application. I do understand your request too, but it sounds like you'd simply like to be able to address the Adobe Reader from another app directly from an app that you are developing. Is that right?

Pat

[Guest]

Oh right, yeah that's for the most part correct.

In our case, we're not focused on a native application but rather a web application used through Safari. We'd like the ability to expliclty tell the iOS device to open a PDF document we provide using Adobe Reader for iOS e.g. "adobereader://url.to/the/document.pdf" because it's a PDF that can only be viewed in your application (Livecycle document security). I'm not exactly sure how it'd work behind the scenes or if it is actually possible but either way to ability to open a PDF straight into Adobe Reader for iOS would be invaluable.

Apologies for the hijack, might be good to tackle this specific issue elsewhere.

[Pat Wibbeler]

Tim,

I think your use case may be handled in a future release, though we hadn't specifically planned to document the feature for non-adobe apps. However, this seems like a reasonable thing to do. If you'd like, please send email to pawibbel@adobe.com and we can talk a bit more about this. Maybe you can try it and we can document it for others once it works 😃

Pat

[david_ayre]

Hi Pat,

Any update on support for this ?   Our application allows users to download editable forms that we extend with Adobe Extender, but we'd like to skip iOS devices opening them up in the default viewer which doesn't support editable forms to any acceptable degree.   They then have this extra "open with.." step to open the doc in an alternate app which supports editable forms.  

With a fully supported URL Scheme like PDF Expert/iAnnotate have which launches the app and opens up the form, we could have our users bypass the default viewer completely (and the extra step).

PDF Expert and Adobe Reader seem to be the best apps for editable form support, but only PDF Expert supports the URL scheme... so we've been recommending that for our users.   It would be great if they have more options and we could recommend Reader too.

David

[Guest]

I was following this up with Pat, but I sort of let it fall by the wayside. It has only becoming increasingly important for us, as our product leverages Adobe Livecycle's document security and Adobe Reader for iOS is the only viewer on the iPhone/iPad that can view our PDF's properly.

Here's an example web page that leverages this to open a url (HTTP and HTTPS) in Google Chrome for iOS:

http://jsfiddle.net/Gr9La/

Adobe Reader for iOS could take the same approach. Here's some documentation regarding Google Chrome for iOS approach:

https://developers.google.com/chrome/mobile/docs/ios-links

[hfybang]

Hi Pat,

Is the support for the URL Scheme com.adobe.Adobe-Reader:// enabled in the current Adobe Reader iPad App?

If Yes, Please do provide us with the correct url usage or the pattern to open a pdf in Adobe Reader App from our iPad App. We tried with the url, each time it opens the Adobe Reader App, but not our pdf in it.

[mbxiii]

Has there been a confirmed solution for this issue?

Knowing the URL Scheme and that it will consistently work would be extremely useful.

[johnsidi]

Adobe-Reader's URL scheme is the

com.adobe.Adobe-Reader

but I tried (2012-11-13) to open a specific PDF file without success. I used the syntax "com.adobe.Adobe-Reader://myfile.pdf". Only the Adobe Reader app opens. Maybe in the future Adobe will implement this functionality. Actually, it would be even better if we could create links to specific PDF pages using a URL like the following:

com.adobe.Adobe-Reader://myfile.pdf&page=20

This kind of links are extremely helpful for reference purposes and you can create them both in Windows and Mac computers. For more information you can read my blog posts http://www.organognosi.com/its-all-about-hyperlinks/ and http://www.organognosi.com/create-hyperlink-to-a-specific-pdf-page-in-microsoft-word-for-windows-2/

[Magadanski_Uchen]

I'm developing a PhoneGap application that shows a list of PDF files an currently those open in the same app with no back button or whatever. The option of a URI scheme to open files in Adobe Reader would be exactly what I need. Similar issue to mine is described here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13375472/add-open-in-ibooks-to-uiwebview so it seems this would be helpful to a lot of people.