Develop code to open PDF with Salesforce for Android and iOS app

Opening a Previously Uploaded PDF

If you have previously uploaded the PDF to your Files tab in Salesforce full site org, then you can use the Files record id as a parameter in the navigateToSObject() method call to navigate to the PDF view page. To find the Files record id for your PDF, if you have already uploaded it, open up the Files tab in Salesforce desktop and copy and paste the record ID from the URL for the PDF. It'll start with the "069" prefix, which is the Files record ID.

NOTE: Read our help article for a list of the standard object record IDs and their prefixes. Do not use the Attachment record ID when opening a PDF in the Salesforce for Android and iOS app environment, as the navigateToSObject call won't open the PDF.

Example of using the sforce.one.navigateToSObject() call in a VisualForce page

<apex:page standardController="Campaign">
  <script>
    sforce.one.navigateToSObject('06946000000WeeL');
  </script>
</apex:page>

Example of using lightning:navigation in a Lightning component

NOTE: lightning:navigation uses the navigate() with pageReference 

({
    handleClick: function(cmp, event, helper) {
        var navService = cmp.find("navService");
        var pageReference = {
            type: 'standard__recordPage',
            attributes: {
                recordId: '069e0000000azKYAAY',
                objectApiName: 'ContentDocument',
                actionName: 'view'
            }
        }
        event.preventDefault();
        navService.navigate(pageReference);
    }
})

Opening Dynamically Generated PDFs

If you're trying to dynamically build and display your PDF file, you will want to generate and save this file via your controller then navigate to the new ID accordingly. Generating and saving it on the server side, will eliminate conflicts noticed with the webview incorrectly handling content types across different platforms, or other rendering related issues that may occur. With this approach and navigating to the file directly, it should provide a more consistent user experience in our supported mobile environments.

NOTE: Salesforce Support cannot offer assistance in building out the functionality to dynamically generate PDFs, but we are able to assist if there is a specific error observed when attempting to render the dynamically generated PDFs.