Displaying PDF and Securing PDF as Ebooks

Besides HTML pages, PDF documents are also completely supported by HTML Executable. This means that, like HTML files, PDF files can be included in your ebooks or applications. Users of the software can view PDF files without the use of any extra plugins or software because HTML Executable offers a stand-alone PDF viewer. Additionally, HTML Executable may offer your PDF content the same strong protection it does for HTML, restricting user permissions (such as copy and print), blocking snapshots, and protecting the source files from copying.

Using the HTML Executable's built-in PDF viewer lets you keep your PDF documents as secure as possible: they are not unpacked to the hard disk, so they cannot be copied by your users. It is also not possible to use the "Save" feature to save the PDF file on the hard disk. Printing is optional and can be forbidden. Moreover, printing with a PDF printer from the built-in PDF viewer is not allowed.

Learn all features and hints about the built-in PDF Viewer

Watch our video tutorial about how to convert a PDF into an ebook with HTML Executable. Moreover, we added some additional customization steps like: disabling Print, Print Screen..., adding a password protection (and you can even go further thanks to the security features of HTML Executable), integrating a splash screen, changing the ebook window's look, creating a custom icon for your ebook EXE file thanks to our icon software GConvert - and much more.

Displaying PDF documents in your ebook or publication

To enable the built-in PDF viewer, go to Application Settings => PDF Viewer and turn on: "Use the built-in PDF viewer in this publication".

Then, PDF files are displayed as if they were HTML pages. For instance, when an end user clicks a link to a PDF file, the application will show the PDF directly.

If the built-in PDF viewer is not used, the default PDF reader provided by the WebView2 or Chromium engines will be used.

In cases you are unable to display PDF documents correctly, add the "_heopenit" target to the anchor tag as shown in the following HTML code:

<a href="mydoc.pdf" target="_heopenit">Open my PDF document</a>

This will cause the publication to open the "mydoc.pdf" file in the default PDF reader.