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Actually, PDF files can be optimized for streaming: http://acroeng.adobe.com/wp/?page_id=27

It's covered in Annex F of the PDF spec: https://wwwimages2.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/pdf...

"Linearized" PDFs have extra info up front to allow streaming and random access (via range requests).

You could try to progressively render the file, pausing when a required forward reference isn't within the data you have downloaded so far.

That seems to be what they do, in my experience.

Well, I imagine that they download the file in the background, and if the viewer seeks to a non-downloaded part of the file, then it just blocks with "Loading" until that part is downloaded.

If I remember correctly the PDF Spec says the files should be read backwards. The object table is at the end of the file.

engineers gonna engineer