In our web site we have embedded PDFs, and we would like to make sure that when the user clicks a link inside the PDF, it opens in a new tab or window. We have no control over the PDFs so we cannot do anything with the links themselves.

Is it possible to intercept the request in some way, for example with onbeforeunload, and force the new page to open in a separate window?

In our web site we have embedded PDFs, and we would like to make sure that when the user clicks a link inside the PDF, it opens in a new tab or window. We have no control over the PDFs so we cannot do anything with the links themselves.

Is it possible to intercept the request in some way, for example with onbeforeunload, and force the new page to open in a separate window?

• javascript
• pdf
• hyperlink

Share Follow asked Mar 3, 2011 at 9:23 taraltaral 3311 silver badge44 bronze badges 0

Add a ment  | 

4 Answers 4

Sorted by: Reset to default 5

No sorry, there is no way of doing this.

This is by design.

If it was possible it would be a major security breach.

According to Aaron Digulla's answer, you can't actually do this without modifying the PDF reader. Sorry!

I think you can't do this without changing Acrobat Reader... I suggest ... some other PDF reader which doesn't use a "single document" UI. [Foxit Reader] uses tabs and can display several PDF documents.

Could this be of interest: JS to open pdf's in new window? I'm assuming that you can at least add JavaScript to the page. You shouldn't have to modify the PDF's themselves in order to open them in a new window, and even though you might not be able to modify the url's themselves you should be free to open those links in any fashion you want on your page. Or am I pletely misunderstanding your question? :)

You can manipulate the links inside the PDF document to run a javascript to open links in a new window/tab. Heres how I did it with C# and iTextSharp

    public static MemoryStream OpenLinksInNewWindow(MemoryStream mySource)
    {
        PdfReader myReader = new PdfReader(mySource);

        int intPageCount = myReader.NumberOfPages;

        PdfDictionary myPageDictionary = default(PdfDictionary);
        PdfArray myLinks = default(PdfArray);

        //Loop through each page
        for (int i = 1; i <= intPageCount; i++)
        {
            //Get the current page
            myPageDictionary = myReader.GetPageN(i);

            //Get all of the annotations for the current page
            myLinks = myPageDictionary.GetAsArray(PdfName.ANNOTS);

            //Make sure we have something
            if ((myLinks == null) || (myLinks.Length == 0))
                continue;

            //Loop through each annotation

            foreach (PdfObject myLink in myLinks.ArrayList)
            {
                //Convert the itext-specific object as a generic PDF object
                PdfDictionary myLinkDictionary = (PdfDictionary)PdfReader.GetPdfObject(myLink);

                //Make sure this annotation has a link
                if (!myLinkDictionary.Get(PdfName.SUBTYPE).Equals(PdfName.LINK))
                    continue;

                //Make sure this annotation has an ACTION
                if (myLinkDictionary.Get(PdfName.A) == null)
                    continue;

                //Get the ACTION for the current annotation
                PdfDictionary myLinkAction = (PdfDictionary)myLinkDictionary.Get(PdfName.A);

                //Test if it is a URI action
                if (myLinkAction.Get(PdfName.S).Equals(PdfName.URI))
                {
                    //Replace the link to run a javascript function instead
                    myLinkAction.Remove(PdfName.F);
                    myLinkAction.Remove(PdfName.WIN);
                    myLinkAction.Put(PdfName.S, PdfName.JAVASCRIPT);
                    myLinkAction.Put(PdfName.JS, new PdfString(String.Format("OpenLink('{0}');", myLinkAction.Get(PdfName.URI))));
                }
            }
        }


        //Next we create a new document add import each page from the reader above
        MemoryStream myMemoryStream = new MemoryStream();

        using (Document myDocument = new Document())
        {
            using (PdfCopy myWriter = new PdfCopy(myDocument, myMemoryStream))
            {
                myDocument.Open();
                for (int i = 1; i <= myReader.NumberOfPages; i++)
                {
                    myWriter.AddPage(myWriter.GetImportedPage(myReader, i));
                }

                // Insert JavaScript function to open link
                string jsText = "function OpenLink(uri) { app.launchURL(uri, true); }";                 
                PdfAction js = PdfAction.JavaScript(jsText, myWriter);
                myWriter.AddJavaScript(js);

                myDocument.Close();
            }
        }                      

        return new MemoryStream(myMemoryStream.GetBuffer());
    }

I got most code from this answer: https://stackoverflow./a/8141831/596758