How to build a JavaScript PDF viewer with Nutrient

What is a JavaScript PDF viewer?

A JavaScript PDF viewer uses JavaScript to render and view PDF documents in a web browser without the need to download it to your hard drive or use an external application like a PDF reader.

Nutrient JavaScript PDF viewer

We offer a commercial JavaScript PDF viewer library that can easily be integrated into your web application. It lets you view, annotate, edit, and sign documents directly in your browser. Out of the box, it has a polished and flexible UI that you can extend or simplify based on your unique use case.

• A prebuilt and polished UI for an improved user experience
• 15+ prebuilt annotation tools to enable document collaboration
• Support for more file types with client-side PDF, MS Office, and image viewing
• Dedicated support from engineers to speed up integration

Example of our JavaScript PDF viewer

To demo our JavaScript PDF viewer, upload a PDF, JPG, PNG, or TIFF file by clicking Open Document under the Standalone option (if you don’t see this option, select Choose Example from the dropdown). Once your document is displayed in the viewer, try drawing freehand, adding a note, or applying a crop or an eSignature.

If you prefer a video tutorial, you can watch our step-by-step guide.

Requirements to get started

To get started, you’ll need:

• The latest stable version of Node.js(opens in a new tab).
• A package manager compatible with npm(opens in a new tab). This guide contains usage examples for Yarn(opens in a new tab) and the npm client(opens in a new tab) (installed with Node.js by default).

Adding Nutrient to your project

Install the @nutrient-sdk/viewer package via npm:

npm i @nutrient-sdk/viewer

pnpm add @nutrient-sdk/viewer

yarn add @nutrient-sdk/viewer

The SDK will automatically load required assets (fonts, icons, web workers) from Nutrient’s CDN at runtime when you use the useCDN: true option.

Integrating into your project

1. Add the PDF document you want to display to your project’s directory. You can use our demo document as an example.

2. Add a mounting <div> and a script reference to your HTML:

   <div id="nutrient" style="width: 100%; height: 100vh;"></div>
   <script type="module" src="index.js"></script>

3. Create your JavaScript entry file (index.js) with the following code:

   (async () => {
     const container = document.getElementById("nutrient");
   
     // Import the SDK
     const NutrientViewer = (await import("@nutrient-sdk/viewer")).default;
   
     if (container && NutrientViewer) {
       // Ensure there's only one NutrientViewer instance
       NutrientViewer.unload(container);
   
       NutrientViewer.load({
         container,
         document: "document.pdf",
         useCDN: true, // Load assets from Nutrient's CDN
       })
         .then((instance) => {
           console.log("Nutrient loaded", instance);
         })
         .catch((error) => {
           console.error(error.message);
         });
     }
   })();

Serving your website

1. Install the serve package globally:

   npm install --global serve

2. Start a local server from the current directory:

   serve -l 8080 .

3. Open your browser and go to http://localhost:8080 to view your website.

   

Adding even more capabilities

After deployment, customize the viewer or add more capabilities. Here are some of our most popular JavaScript guides:

• Adding annotations
• Editing documents
• Filling PDF forms
• Adding signatures to documents
• Real-time collaboration
• Redaction
• UI customization

Conclusion

You should now have our JavaScript PDF viewer up and running in your web application. If you encounter any issues, contact our Support team for help.

You can also integrate our JavaScript PDF viewer using web frameworks like Angular, Vue.js, and React.js. To see a list of all web frameworks, start your free trial. Or, launch our demo to see our viewer in action.

Do you prefer an open source approach? See how to build a JavaScript PDF viewer with PDF.js.

Comparing libraries before you build? See our roundup of the best JavaScript PDF viewer options.

FAQ