pdf_viewer

A PDF attached to a record is usually offered as a download, which means leaving Odoo, opening a viewer and coming back. For a document people read rather than keep, that is three steps too many.

This widget renders the PDF where it sits. The file is displayed through the browser's own PDF viewer inside the form, with the surrounding record still visible, so a contract, a specification or a scanned invoice can be read without going anywhere.

Two of the viewer's own controls are deliberately removed: download and print. The intent is clear from the code, and it makes the widget a reading surface rather than a distribution point.

Inline document preview changes how a record is used. Approving a supplier document, checking a specification against an order line, or reading a scanned bill while coding it are all faster when the document and the data are on one screen.

Hiding download and print is worth understanding rather than working around. It does not secure the file, since anyone who can see the record can still reach the attachment through other routes; it removes the affordance from this particular surface, which keeps the preview a preview. If controlled distribution matters, that belongs in access rights rather than in a widget.

The usual usage

<field name="document" widget="pdf_viewer"
       filename="document_filename"/>

The companion field holds the uploaded file's name, exactly as for a plain binary field.

Read-only preview

<field name="document" widget="pdf_viewer"
       readonly="1"/>

Removes the upload path and leaves the preview. The widget also clears its temporary object URL when the field becomes read-only.

What does nothing

<!-- declared but never extracted -->
<field name="document" widget="pdf_viewer"
       options="{'preview_image': 'thumbnail'}"/>

The extractor returns only the file name attribute, so this key is ignored.

The button hiding is the part worth knowing about. After the frame is available, the widget calls a shared helper that reaches into the embedded viewer and removes the download and print controls, with both explicitly requested. That helper exists precisely because the viewer's own interface is not otherwise configurable from Odoo.

The second detail is cleanup. When the field becomes read-only, an update hook clears the object URL the widget built for a freshly uploaded file. Object URLs stay alive until released, so clearing it avoids holding the file in memory once editing stops.

Failure is handled rather than ignored: a PDF the browser cannot render marks the widget invalid and raises a notification saying so, which is more useful than an empty frame.

And the declared option is worth repeating because it is easy to trust. The supported options list announces a preview image field, but the extractor returns a single property built from the file name attribute. Anything passed under that option name is discarded, and no warning is issued.

Odoo 20 is expected at Odoo Experience in Brussels, 24 to 26 September 2026. The development branch is unstable and this may still change; we re-verify this page after the release.

Behavior is unchanged. The inline preview, the hidden download and print controls and the file name handling all behave the same. The differences follow the wider component migration and affect patches rather than views.