Getting Started with Standalone PDF Viewer component

25 Mar 202512 minutes to read

This section explains the steps required to create a simple Standalone React PDF Viewer and demonstrates the basic usage of the PDF Viewer control in a React application.

Prerequisites

To get started with Syncfusion^® React UI components, ensure the compatible version of React.

React supported version >= 15.5.4+.
Required node version >= 14.0.0+(NPM Package Manager).

Setup for Local Development

Create a new React app create-react-app and install it using the following command.

npm install -g create-react-app

To setup basic React sample use following commands.

JSX
TSX
create-react-app quickstart
cd quickstart
npm install
npx create-react-app quickstart --template cra-template-typescript
cd quickstart 
npm install

Adding Syncfusion^® packages

All the available Essential^® JS 2 packages are published in npmjs.com public registry.

To install PDF Viewer component, use the following command

npm install @syncfusion/ej2-react-pdfviewer --save

Copy the contents of the ej2-pdfviewer-lib folder from ./node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-pdfviewer/dist to the public directory using the command:

cp -R ./node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-pdfviewer/dist/ej2-pdfviewer-lib public/ej2-pdfviewer-lib

Confirm that there is an ‘ej2-pdfviewer-lib’ directory within your public directory.
Validate that your server has been configured to utilize the Content-Type: application/wasm MIME type. Additional information can be found in the Troubleshooting section.

NOTE

The following changes apply to React version 18 and above.

Adding PDF Viewer component and the CSS reference

Add an HTML div element to act as the PDF Viewer element public/index.html using the following code.

   <!DOCTYPE html>
   <html lang="en">
   <head>
   <title>Syncfusion React PDF Viewer</title>
   <meta charset="utf-8" />
   <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
   <meta name="description" content="Essential JS 2 for React Components" />
   <meta name="author" content="Syncfusion" />
   </head>
   <body>
      <div id='sample'>
         <div id='loader'>Loading....</div>
      </div>
   </body>
   </html>

Add the React PDF Viewer component’s CSS reference as given below in src/index.css file.

   @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-base/styles/material.css';  
   @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-buttons/styles/material.css';
   @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-dropdowns/styles/material.css';  
   @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-inputs/styles/material.css';  
   @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-navigations/styles/material.css';
   @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-popups/styles/material.css';
   @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-splitbuttons/styles/material.css';
   @import "../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-pdfviewer/styles/material.css";

Add the React PDF Viewer as below in src/index.js file to render the PDF Viewer component.

JSX
TSX
import * as ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import * as React from 'react';
import './index.css';
import { PdfViewerComponent, Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView,
         ThumbnailView, Print, TextSelection, Annotation, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner, Inject} from '@syncfusion/ej2-react-pdfviewer';

function App() {
    return (<div>
    <div className='control-section'>
    {/* Render the PDF Viewer */}
      <PdfViewerComponent
        id="container"
        documentPath="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/pdf/pdf-succinctly.pdf"
        resourceUrl="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/26.2.11/dist/ej2-pdfviewer-lib"
        style={{ 'height': '640px' }}>
         
         <Inject services={[ Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, Annotation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView,
                             ThumbnailView, Print, TextSelection, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner ]}/>

      </PdfViewerComponent>
    </div>
  </div>);
}
const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('sample'));
root.render(<App />);
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom/client';
import './index.css';
import  { PdfViewerComponent, Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView,
          ThumbnailView, Print, TextSelection, Annotation, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner, Inject} from '@syncfusion/ej2-react-pdfviewer';
export function App() {
return (<div>
 <div className='control-section'>
     <PdfViewerComponent 
      id="container" 
      documentPath="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/pdf/pdf-succinctly.pdf" 
      resourceUrl="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/26.2.11/dist/ej2-pdfviewer-lib"
      style={{ 'height': '640px' }}>
         <Inject services={[ Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, Annotation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView,
                             ThumbnailView, Print, TextSelection, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner ]}/>
     </PdfViewerComponent>
 </div>
</div>);
}
const rootElement = document.getElementById('sample')!;
const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(rootElement);
root.render(<App />);

Steps to Load PDF Viewer with Local Resources

To configure the PDF Viewer to use local files for documentPath and resourceUrl instead of files hosted on a CDN, follow these steps:

Step 1: Ensure that your application includes the ej2-pdfviewer-lib folder. This folder must contain the pdfium.js, pdfium.wasm files, and the PDF file that you intend to display. These should be located in the assets directory within your project’s public folder.

Step 2: Assign local file paths to the documentPath and resourceUrl properties within the PDF Viewer setup. The documentPath should refer to your PDF file, while the resourceUrl should point to the directory containing the supporting resources.

By following these steps, you will configure your PDF Viewer to load the required resources locally. See the code snippet below for reference.

JSX
<PdfViewerComponent 
    id="container" 
    documentPath= {window.location.origin + "/assets/pdfsuccinctly.pdf"} 
    resourceUrl = {window.location.origin + "/assets/ej2-pdfviewer-lib"} 
    style={{ 'height': '640px' }}>
</PdfViewerComponent>

View the sample in GitHub to load PDF Viewer with local resources

Run the application

Use the following command to run the application in browser with the port number localhost:8080.

npm start

NOTE

When running the sample, if you encounter the ERR_OSSL_EVP_UNSUPPORTED error error, you need to run the following command in your terminal to resolve this issue. This error is related to OpenSSL, which is a cryptographic library used by Node.js for secure communication and encryption tasks. This specific error typically occurs when Node.js is trying to use cryptographic algorithms or routines that are not supported by the current version of OpenSSL being used.

$env:NODE_OPTIONS = "--openssl-legacy-provider"

Output will be appears as follows.

index.jsx
index.tsx
import * as ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import * as React from 'react';
import  { PdfViewerComponent, Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView,
         ThumbnailView, Print, TextSelection, Annotation, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner, Inject} from '@syncfusion/ej2-react-pdfviewer';
export function App() {
return (<div>
    <div className='control-section'>
        <PdfViewerComponent 
            id="container" 
            documentPath="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/pdf/pdf-succinctly.pdf"
            resourceUrl="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/26.2.11/dist/ej2-pdfviewer-lib"
            style={{ 'height': '640px' }}>
               {/* Inject the required services */}
               <Inject services={[ Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, Annotation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView, ThumbnailView,
                                   Print, TextSelection, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner]} />
        </PdfViewerComponent>
    </div>
</div>);
}
const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('sample'));
root.render(<App />);
import * as ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import * as React from 'react';
import  { PdfViewerComponent, Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView,
         ThumbnailView, Print, TextSelection, Annotation, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner, Inject} from '@syncfusion/ej2-react-pdfviewer';
export function App() {
return (<div>
    <div className='control-section'>
        <PdfViewerComponent 
            id="container" 
            documentPath="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/pdf/pdf-succinctly.pdf"
            resourceUrl="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/24.1.41/dist/ej2-pdfviewer-lib"
            style={{ 'height': '640px' }}>
               {/* Inject the required services */}
               <Inject services={[ Toolbar, Magnification, Navigation, Annotation, LinkAnnotation, BookmarkView, ThumbnailView,
                                   Print, TextSelection, TextSearch, FormFields, FormDesigner]} />
        </PdfViewerComponent>
    </div>
</div>);
}
const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById('sample'));
root.render(<App />);
{% endhighlight %}
{% highlight html tabtitle="index.html" %}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Syncfusion React PDF Viewer</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <meta name="description" content="Essential JS 2 for React Components" />
    <meta name="author" content="Syncfusion" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/material.css" />
    <link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.7/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/systemjs/0.19.38/system.js"></script>
    <script src="systemjs.config.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
        <div id='sample'>
            <div id='loader'>Loading....</div>
        </div>
</body>
</html>

You can refer to our React PDF Viewer feature tour page for its groundbreaking feature representations. You can also explore our React PDF Viewer example to understand how to explains core features of PDF Viewer.