iPad - cannot scroll inside frame

Question

I cannot scroll a pdf called inside a frame in iPad Safari

<frame src="ebook.pdf" title="Content Frame" name="content" id="content" 
frameborder="0" border="0" noresize scrolling="yes" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" 
noresizescrolling="AUTO" framespacing="0" /> 

I have already tried 2 things:

1. 2-finger scroll
2. Using object/embed instead of frame

But this does not work.

In fact I have tried a lot of things...overflow, height, etc..

Please help me. Thank you in advance.

Solution 1

According to this article http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1484 you cannot scroll anything inside a frame when using Safari on the iPad. The frames always get resized to fit their content (this also applies to iframes). To do this, Safari even dismisses the values for "cols" or "rows" you made in the frameset-tag and seems to use whatever value is needed. Unfortunately, the frame does not resize properly for PDFs so they get cut off.

I think your best choice might be to link the pdf directly...

Solution 2

I think the problem is that you are trying to display a PDF. The 2-finger swipe approach should work for regular HTML frames.

One option is to use Google Docs Viewer (http://docs.google.com/viewer) in your application.

Comments

[copenndthagen]

First of all, thanks a lot for taking the time out and suggesting a solution...I have 2 questions for the approach suggested by you;

[copenndthagen]

Yes right..Linking the PDF directly would work..But unfortunately I'll not be able to do that in my current app..

[Steve Kelly]

hmm, I didn't realize you were using the pdf as a src for the iframe. I don't think my method would work then. Is it not possible to export the PDF as an image and place it inline? Then this method would work. Sorry!

[copenndthagen]

I didn't quite understand what exactly do you mean by exporting the PDF as an image..Are you saying just a jpg and then create a link to the actual pdf..If that is what you are trying to say, I'll not be able to do that, as the "src" attribute val is dynamic i.e. different pdfs get loaded in the same frame dynamically, based on where the user comes from..

[lpd]

If you use an iframe instead of a frameset, would it possible to use JavaScript post load to readjust the height of the iframe back to the desired value so the entire pdf is visible on the page at once?

[Philipp Horn]

This should be possible if you find a Javascript-library for receiving the height of the PDF. I don't know if there is such a thing...but I never searched :) Maybe there is a solution in PHP (or whatever language you want to use)

[copenndthagen]

I did try finding online if the PDF height can be calculated dynamically...But not found anything yet...Do you know any way of doing that using Javascript?

[Philipp Horn]

No, sorry, I din't find anything either. Does it has to be client-side or can you use some server-side stuff too...like converting the pdf to an image with PHP and get the height of that image...might be overkill though :)

[copenndthagen]

Hey...here is what my findings are...using iframe, i can scroll through the pdf..though works only in older ios..think 3.2....But the same does not work in the latest ios...4.3

[copenndthagen]

Yes right..But as I said, using <iframe>, i can scroll through the pdf..though works only in older ios (think 3.2)....But the same does not work in the latest ios...4.3

[copenndthagen]

Also I am a bit aprehensive of using Google Docs Viewer ..I mean is it completely free to use for commercial purpose ?

[lensovet]

Sorry but that's not what the article says. It says that the scroll bars are hidden and that you must use a two-finger gesture to scroll up/down. Unfortunately this only works on frames with HTML inside them and not PDFs.

[Philipp Horn]

Well...it says both...which is a little bit confusing because why would you want to scroll in a frame that is "expanded to fit its content"?! By the way: did apple manage to solve this whole issue yet?