How to display a PDF via Android web browser without "downloading" first

Question

Is there a way to get the stock Android browser to auto-open a PDF, Word or other typical file without having to go through the process of downloading the file and then getting the user to open the file from the Downloads app or the Notification bar?

We have a web application that has a lot of documents that we'd like to include and not have to convert to HTML, but making the user download the file and manually open it is not easy to train users on.

On iOS, these files all display inline in the browser. I'd like a way to get the browser to auto-launch the files into Acrobat Reader or QuickOffice or whatever program the user has to display them.

Does anyone know a way to do that? I know that Google Docs has some PDF viewing support, but people using our web app may not have public Internet access in all cases, and may be hitting on a local web server.

Answer 1

You can open PDF in Google Docs Viewer by appending URL to:

http://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=<url of a supported doc>

This would open PDF in default browser or a WebView.

A list of supported formats is given here.