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Is it possible to show a PDF file in the Django view, rather than making the user have to download it to see it?

And if it is possible, how would it be done?

This is what I have so far -

hygullSImonSImon

10 Answers

Simplistically, if you have a PDF file and you want to output it through a Django view, all you need to do is dump the file contents into the response and send it with the appropriate mimetype.

You can probably just return the response directly without specifying Content-Disposition, but that better indicates your intention and also allows you specify the filename just in case the user decides to save it.

Also, note that the view above doesn't handle the scenario where the file cannot be opened or read for whatever reason. Since it's done with with, it won't raise any exceptions, but you still must return some sort of response. You could simply raise an Http404 or something, though.

Marco Bonelli

Django Python Install

Chris PrattChris Pratt

Django has a class specifically for returning files, FileResponse. It streams files, so that you don't have to read the entire file into memory before returning it. Here you go:

If you have really large files or if you're doing this a lot, a better option would probably be to serve these files outside of Django using normal server configuration.

FlimmFlimm

If you are working on a Windows machine pdf must be opened as rb not r.

shuboy2014

Take out inline; if you want your file to be read from server. And also, the HttpResponse kwarg mimetype has been replaced by content_type:

TankorSmash

Following @radtek's answer above I decided to investigate a class-based view display. I tried to use View but it didn't have get_context_data() method.

I looked here for some guidance. I settled for BaseDetailView since I wanted to display just one object.

Commentary

1 This line accesses a named argument pk passed by the url calling the view.

2 This line gets the actual pdf model object.

3 I defined a method filename(self): return os.path.basename(self.file.name) in my model to help me get just the filename plus extension.

4 This line gets the complete filepath.

Then use file response as explained in the answers above. Also remember to use rb to read the pdf file

Here is a typical use-case for displaying a PDF using class-based views:

For generating your own pdf with reportlab see the Django project Docs on PDF Generation.

Chris Pratt's response shows a good example of opening existing PDFs.

radtekradtek

Browsers aren't PDF readers (unless they have the proper plugin/addon).

You may want to render the PDF as HTML instead, which can be done from the backend or the frontend.

GonzaloGonzalo

I am just throwing this out there.

You can simply add your PDF resume to your static files.

If you are using White Noise to serve your static files, then you don't even need to make the view. Just then access your resume at the static location.

I added mine, here it is: https://www.jefferythewind.com/static/main/resume/TIm-D_Nice.pdf

Warning: This doesn't solve the login_required requirement in the question

jeffery_the_windjeffery_the_wind

The easiest way to do this is probably with an anchor in a template. For example, if you are using Django's templating engine (as most people who search for this probably are), simply serve it as a static file through an anchor.

In your template that will contain a link to the file, add at the very top

Then, wherever you want to link to your pdf, put

The first line tells Django to look in the directories configured for static files in settings.py. The path that you use in the anchor tag is relative to any of the directories that you configured as static directories in settings.py. When you click the rendered link, it should display the PDF in your browser, provided you have your static files pathed correctly.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged pythondjangomodel-view-controllerpdf or ask your own question.

What is Python?

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In this chapter, I will first explain what a programming language is. We will then briefly see the story of Python, so that you at least know where this language comes from! This chapter is theoretical but I urge you to read it anyway.

The final section will cover the installation of Python, an essential step to continue this tutorial. Whether you are working with Windows, Linux or Mac OS X, you will find precise explanations of the installation.

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A programming language? What is it ?

Human communication
No, this is not a biological or philosophical explanation, do not leave!
Very simply, if you come to understand these sequences of strange and disconcerting symbols that are the letters of the alphabet, it is because we respect certain conventions, in language and in writing. In French, there are rules of grammar and spelling, I do not teach you anything. You communicate by knowing more or less consciously these rules and by applying them more or less well, as the case may be.
However, these rules can easily be circumvented: no one can claim to know all the rules of French grammar and spelling, and few people care. After all, even if you make mistakes, people with whom you communicate can easily understand you.
When you communicate with a computer, however, it's very different.

My computer communicates too!

Yes, your computer communicates constantly with you and you communicate with him constantly. Okay, he tells you very rarely that he is hungry, that the summer promises to be scorching and that the last disc of this well-known band was crying.
There is nothing magic if, when you click on the small cross at the top right of the current application, it understands that it must close.

Machine language

In fact, your computer is also based on a language to communicate with you or with itself. The operations that a computer can perform at the base are most classic and consist of the addition of two numbers, their subtraction, their multiplication, their division, whole or not. And yet, these five operations are amply enough to run the most complex simulation software or super-realistic games.
All these programs work roughly the same way:

• a sequence of instructions written in machine language composes the program;
• when running the program, these instructions describe to the computer what to do (the computer can not guess).

By schematizing voluntarily, an instruction could ask the program to close if you click on the cross at the top right of your screen, or stay in the background if that is his pleasure. However, in machine language, such an action alone requires a large number of instructions.

But hey, you can imagine, talking with the computer in machine language, which includes only the binary, it is neither very rewarding nor very practical, and in any case not very funny.
We have invented programming languages to facilitate communication with the computer.

What can Python do?

Python is a powerful language that is both easy to learn and rich in possibilities. From the moment you install it on your computer, you have many features built into the language that we will discover throughout this book.

It is also very easy to extend the existing features, as we will see. Thus, there are so-called libraries that help the developer to work on particular projects. Several libraries can thus be installed to, for example, develop graphical interfaces in Python.

Python

Concretely, that's what we can do with Python:

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• small, very simple programs, called scripts, loaded with a very precise mission on your computer;
• complete programs, such as games, office suites, multimedia software, email clients ...
• very complex projects, such as software packages (set of several software that can work together, mainly used in the professional world).