# Display Gateway PDF in Client PDF Viewer

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/display-gateway-pdf-in-client-pdf-viewer/27778>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** ignition79\
**Created:** [August 26, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/display-gateway-pdf-in-client-pdf-viewer/27778 "2019-08-26T19:31:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dkhayes117](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/dkhayes117/32/68344_2.png) [@dkhayes117](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/dkhayes117)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/display-gateway-pdf-in-client-pdf-viewer/27778/1 "2019-08-26T19:31:03Z")

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I haven’t been able to figure out a simple way of displaying a pdf that is stored on my gateway in a client pdf viewer. I envision it working like the image component, where you upload an image into the appropriate Ignition folder and then just enter the file path into the component. Is there a reason that the image component works this way, but not the pdf viewer? My client is running on a RPi, and for various reasons I need to host the pdf files on the gateway and view on the client. I can’t use `system.net.openURL()` because I am in fullscreen mode and it wouldn’t work like I want.

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**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/display-gateway-pdf-in-client-pdf-viewer/27778/2 "2019-08-26T19:33:47Z")

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The image management feature was mostly built to solve a specific problem in Vision, so it doesn’t support arbitrary file hosting. The “correct” way to do something like this would be the webdev module - similar to Perspective, you can make a Python endpoint that returns a byte-stream (corresponding to the output of `system.report.executeReport`) and returns it to the host - then, Vision’s PDF viewer component should be able to display the output from that URL successfully.

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**Author:** ![Matrix\_Engineering](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/matrix_engineering/32/19781_2.png) [@Matrix\_Engineering](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Matrix_Engineering)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/display-gateway-pdf-in-client-pdf-viewer/27778/3 "2019-08-26T19:40:02Z")

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I’ve stored PDF’s in DB (as a BLOB) and then used the PDF viewer to display

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**Author:** ![Rusty](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/rusty/32/19859_2.png) [@Rusty](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Rusty)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 9:12pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/display-gateway-pdf-in-client-pdf-viewer/27778/4 "2020-08-11T21:12:53Z")

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It would be a useful feature to have. I am looking for a way to store PDF manuals and instruction files centrally on the Gateway so that they are accessible in Ignition Vision Client for each machine. If I update a file, I can just save the file to the gateway instead of trying to distribute it to multiple PCs.