Flutter PDF Library by PSPDFKit

PSPDFKit for Flutter is an SDK for viewing, annotating, and editing PDFs. It offers developers the ability to quickly add PDF functionality to any Flutter application. It is available at pub.dev and GitHub.

If you are new to Flutter, make sure to check our Flutter blog posts:

• How I Got Started With Flutter.
• Getting Started with Flutter PDF Library by PSPDFKit.
• Opening a PDF in Flutter.
• How to Bridge Native iOS Code to Flutter.
• How to Customize Our Flutter PDF SDK for Android.
• Advances in Hybrid Technologies.
• How We Maintain Our Public Flutter Project Using a Private Monorepo.
• How to Download and Display a PDF Document in Flutter with PSPDFKit.

For our quick-start guides, check out our website.

Platform specific README exists for Android and iOS.

Setup

Integration into a New Flutter App

Install PSPDFKit Flutter Plugin

1. Open pubspec.yaml:

   open pubspec.yaml

2. Add the PSPDFKit dependency in pubspec.yaml:

    dependencies:
      flutter:
        sdk: flutter
   +  pspdfkit_flutter: any

3. Open lib/main.dart and replace the entire content with the contents of demo_project_main.dart.txt. This simple example will load a PDF document from local device filesystem.

4. Add the PDF document you want to display in your project’s assets directory.

   • First create a PDFs directory:

     mkdir PDFs

   • Move a sample document into the newly created PDFs directory, and rename it as Document.pdf:

     cp ~/Downloads/PSPDFKit.pdf PDFs/Document.pdf

5. Specify the assets directory in pubspec.yaml:

    # The following section is specific to Flutter.
    flutter:
   +  assets:
   +    - PDFs/
    ...

6. From the terminal app, run the following command to get all the packages:

   flutter pub get

Android

Requirements

• The latest stable version of Flutter
• The latest stable version of Android Studio
• The Android NDK
• An Android Virtual Device or a hardware device

Getting Started

1. Create a Flutter project called pspdfkit_demo with the flutter CLI:

   flutter create --org com.example.pspdfkit_demo pspdfkit_demo

2. In the terminal app, change the location of the current working directory to your project:

   cd pspdfkit_demo

3. Update the pluginManagement block in the android/settings.gradle file as follows:

   pluginManagement {
       ...
   +    buildscript {
   +        repositories {
   +            mavenCentral()
   +            maven {
   +                url = uri("https://storage.googleapis.com/r8-releases/raw")
   +            }
   +        }
   +        dependencies {
   +            classpath("com.android.tools:r8:8.3.37")
   +       }
   +    }
   }
   
   // Upgrade Kotlin version.
   plugins {
       id "dev.flutter.flutter-plugin-loader" version "1.0.0"
       id "com.android.application" version "7.3.0" apply false
   -   id "org.jetbrains.kotlin.android" version "1.7.10" apply false
   +   id "org.jetbrains.kotlin.android" version "1.8.22" apply false
   }

   This step involves enabling R8 for code shrinking (not required for AGP 8.* and above) and upgrading the Kotlin version.

4. Open the app’s Gradle build file, android/app/build.gradle:

   open android/app/build.gradle

5. Modify the compile SDK version and the minimum SDK version:

   android {
   -   compileSdkVersion flutter.compileSdkVersion
   +   compileSdkVersion 34
   ...
       defaultConfig {
   -        minSdkVersion flutter.minSdkVersion
   +        minSdkVersion 21
   ...
       }
       compileOptions {
   -       sourceCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
   -       targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
   +       sourceCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_17
   +       targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_17
       }
   
   // If you have this block, update the `jvmTarget` to 17.
       kotlinOptions {
   -        jvmTarget = '1.8'
   +        jvmTarget = '17'
       }
   ...    
   }

6. Add the AppCompat AndroidX library to your android/app/build.gradle file:

   dependencies {
       implementation "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk7:$kotlin_version"
   +   implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.4.0'
   }

7. Open the project’s main activity class, android/app/src/main/kotlin/com/example/pspdfkit_demo/pspdfkit_demo/MainActivity.kt:

       open android/app/src/main/kotlin/com/example/pspdfkit_demo/pspdfkit_demo/MainActivity.kt

8. Change the base Activity to extend FlutterAppCompatActivity:

   - import io.flutter.embedding.android.FlutterActivity;
   + import io.flutter.embedding.android.FlutterAppCompatActivity;
   
   - public class MainActivity extends FlutterActivity {
   + public class MainActivity extends FlutterAppCompatActivity {
   }

   Alternatively you can update the AndroidManifest.xml file to use FlutterAppCompatActivity as the launcher activity:

   <activity 
   -   android:name=".MainActivity" 
   +   android:name="io.flutter.embedding.android.FlutterAppCompatActivity" 
       android:launchMode="singleTop" 
       android:theme="@style/LaunchTheme" 
       android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|keyboard|screenSize|locale|layoutDirection|fontScale|screenLayout|density|uiMode" 
       android:hardwareAccelerated="true" 
       android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustResize" 
       android:exported="true">

   NOTE: FlutterAppCompatActivity isn’t an official part of the Flutter SDK. It’s a custom Activity that extends AppCompatActivity from the AndroidX AppCompat library, and it’s necessary to use PSPDFKit for Android with Flutter. You can read more about this in the AppCompatActivity Migration guide.

9. Update the theme in android/app/src/main/res/values/styles.xml to use PSPDFKit.Theme.default as the parent:

   - <style name="NormalTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
   + <style name="NormalTheme" parent="PSPDFKit.Theme.Default">

   This is to customize the theme of the PSPDFKit UI. You can read more about this in the appearance styling guide.

10. Start your Android emulator, or connect a device.

11. Run the app with:

    flutter run

iOS

Requirements

• The latest stable version of Flutter
• The latest stable version of Xcode
• The latest stable version of CocoaPods

Getting Started

1. Create a Flutter project called pspdfkit_demo with the flutter CLI:

   flutter create --org com.example.pspdfkit_demo pspdfkit_demo

2. In the terminal app, change the location of the current working directory to your project:

   cd pspdfkit_demo

3. Open Runner.xcworkspace from the ios folder in Xcode:

   open ios/Runner.xcworkspace

4. Make sure the iOS Deployment Target is set to 15.0 or higher.

   

5. Change "View controller-based status bar appearance" to YES in Info.plist.

   

6. Open your project’s Podfile in a text editor:

   open ios/Podfile

7. Update the platform to iOS 15 and add the PSPDFKit Podspec:

   -# platform :ios, '9.0'
   + platform :ios, '15.0'
    ...
    target 'Runner' do
      use_frameworks!
      use_modular_headers!`
   
      flutter_install_all_ios_pods File.dirname(File.realpath(__FILE__))
   +  pod 'PSPDFKit', podspec:'https://customers.pspdfkit.com/pspdfkit-ios/latest.podspec'
    end

8. Run flutter emulators --launch apple_ios_simulator to launch the iOS Simulator.

9. Run the app with:

   flutter run

Web

Requirements

• The latest stable version of Chrome

Getting Started

PSPDFKit for Web library files are distributed as an archive that can be extracted manually.

1. Download the framework here. The download will start immediately and will save a .tar.gz archive like PSPDFKit-Web-binary-<%= latest_version(:web) %>.tar.gz to your computer.

2. Once the download is complete, extract the archive and copy the entire contents of its dist folder to your project’s web/assets folder or any other folder of your choice inside the web subfolder.

3. Make sure your assets folder contains the pspdfkit.js file and a pspdfkit-lib directory with the library assets.

4. Make sure your server has the Content-Type: application/wasm MIME typeset. Read more about this in the Troubleshooting section.

5. Include the PSPDFKit library in your index.html file:

<script src="assets/pspdfkit.js"></script>

6. Run the app with:

   flutter run

Example App

To see PSPDFKit for Flutter in action check out our Flutter example app.

Showing a PDF document inside your Flutter app is as simple as this:

```dart
    PspdfkitWidget(documentPath: 'file:///path/to/Documentpdf')
```

Upgrading to a Full PSPDFKit License Key

PSPDFKit is a commercial product and requires the purchase of a license key when used in production. By default, this library will initialize in demo mode, placing a watermark on each PDF and limiting usage to 60 minutes.

To purchase a license for production use, please reach out to us via https://pspdfkit.com/sales/form/.

To initialize PSPDFKit using a license key, call either of the following before using any other PSPDFKit APIs or features:

To set the license key for both Android and iOS, use:

await Pspdfkit.setLicenseKeys("YOUR_FLUTTER_ANDROID_LICENSE_KEY_GOES_HERE", "YOUR_FLUTTER_IOS_LICENSE_KEY_GOES_HERE");

To set the license key for the currently running platform, use:

await Pspdfkit.setLicenseKey("YOUR_FLUTTER_LICENSE_KEY_GOES_HERE");

Migrating from Previous Version

To upgrade PSPDFKit for Flutter in your app, please refer to the Upgrade and Migration Guides section.

Troubleshooting

For Troubleshooting common issues you might encounter when setting up PSPDFKit for Flutter, please refer to the Troubleshooting section.