Ask HN: Why is there no standard way to display PDF documents in all browsers?

[andrewstuart]

You'd think that it would be possible to display PDF documents in web browsers by now.

But there is not yet any way to build a web application that integrates PDF documents, because it is not safe to assume that any browser can display PDF.

Why is this? Surely it's in the interests of Adobe to ensure PDF documents can be seamlessly integrated into websites?

[_tggb]

PDF is a standard, see ISO/IEC 32000-1:2008.

And Adobe has done some work to make it work everywhere. There is a PDF plugin for the big three OS's (and Solaris). However, no one ships an OS with this plugin installed by default.

[itsnotvalid]

There is no assurance that any plugins would be available on all browsers on all major platforms. Sometimes it is political not technological (like Flash on iOS)

[minalecs]

scribd does do HTML5 and flash. They do provide an api, but I'm not sure how useful, then get embed code.