Cant install Pdf.JS on React Native

[diogoviannaaraujo]

Configuration:

• MacOS and Node 8.x
• React Native

Steps to reproduce the problem:

• Start a react native project
• Yarn add pdfjs-dist
• Try to import pdfjs-dist

You will get a error like this

Unable to resolve module ./zlib_bindings ./node_modules/zlib/lib/zlib_bindings doesn't exist

[timvandermeij]

zlib should be available in Node.js. IIRC zlib is only used for the experimental SVG back-end for optimizations, so I'm not sure why you're getting this. Does npm install zlib work? If it does, perhaps we need to add it to the devDependencies in package.json?

[yurydelendik]

Please provide complete example.

[yurydelendik]

Actually, I'll close it won't fix. Even if we will solve zlib_binding, there is no guarantee rest of PDF.js will work -- PDF.js need "native" browser's DOM to work.

[diogoviannaaraujo]

React Native code does not run on a full node.js environment, so zlib is not available by default.

If I just add pdfjs-dist to package.json it goes to a zlib com not be found error.
Then I added https://www.npmjs.com/package/zlib

And got that error,
I think it should threat React Native as a browser js not as a node

[flieks]

is it possible to use webGL to achieve this ?

[yurydelendik]

is it possible to use webGL to achieve this ?

Anything is possible -- you just need to implement logic similar to what src/display/canvas.js or src/display/svg.js implements.

[flieks]

Haha thanks you but those files are 2000 lines of code and my webGL knowledge is nihil :)

Also pdfjs doesn't work well with expo yet (zlib). Neither webview

https://github.com/expo/expo-sdk/issues/82

[diogoviannaaraujo]

Latter next month I may have to dig in a way to use pdf.js with expo (and react-native). I think using a abstracted dom or a web view is not the way, maybe gl, svg or canvas, still have to take some time to understand better what pdf.js is capable. About zlib and other node libraries, I’ve found out you can go around that by implementing some aliases on babel and installing some npm packages. But there is a lot of going around to do and a lot of bugs to catch.

…

On Aug 23, 2017, at 6:27 AM, De Lille Felix ***@***.***> wrote: Haha thanks you but those files are 2000 lines of code and my webGL knowledge is nihil :) Also pdfjs doesn't work well with expo yet (zlib). Neither webview expo/expo-sdk#82 <https://github.com/expo/expo-sdk/issues/82> — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#8774 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFGkfpPegKgAZd6vkGessquMTtq8VFPwks5sa_CHgaJpZM4O1uKR>.

[flieks]

yes, Expo doesn't have way to show PDF right now and neither has PDF.js.
I will use https://github.com/wonday/react-native-pdf and will have to detach from Expo i fear. Don't really want to detach but there is no other easy way

[agilgur5]

Was looking into this myself, so figured I might leave some notes for future readers.
Initially I found https://github.com/iddan/react-native-canvas which could move a step forward in at least getting rendering to work. It uses a WebView under the hood.
When looking into WebView support, I did find this issue: #7157 (comment) , and the comment which points to https://github.com/xcarpentier/rn-pdf-reader-js , which was actually built for Expo. It similarly uses a WebView under the hood (and uses react-pdf instead of pdf.js directly)