PDF embed not working in IE11, but it WORKS when edit the HTML in DOM Explorer (F12 - debug tool of IE)

Question 1

I was now able to embed the PDF file IE using "<iframe>" tag.

I replaced "<object>" and "<embed>" tag with <iframe> and its working fine now with all 3 browsers, Firefox, Chrome and IE.

There are 2 ways of embedding PDF in IE.

1st way: Call PDF directly in <iframe>

Below is the updated code:

<div id="pdf">
   <iframe src="https://www.adobe.com/products/pdfjobready/pdfs/pdftraag.pdf" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">
        <p>It appears your web browser doesn't support iframes.</p>
   </iframe>
</div>

2nd way: if the browser doesn't have PDF reader the u can call an HTML in page <iframe> which contains <object> tag .

Below is the code for 2nd option

    <div id="pdf">
          <iframe src="pdf.html" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">
               <p>It appears your web browser doesn't support iframes.</p>
          </iframe>
   </div>

Code for "pdf.html"

<body>
    <object data="lorem.pdf" type="application/pdf">
        <p>It appears you don't have Adobe Reader or PDF support in this web browser. <a href="lorem.pdf">Click here to download the PDF</a>. Or <a href="http://get.adobe.com/reader/" target="_blank">click here to install Adobe Reader</a>.</p>
       <embed src="lorem.pdf" type="application/pdf" />
    </object>
</body>

This worked for me!!!

Here is the WORKING Fiddle : http://jsfiddle.net/Z99gr/9/

Hope it will be helpful for others in future!

Question 2

To anyone that has this issues in the future, you have to turn off compatibility mode for intranet sites.

Tools > Compatibility View Settings > Uncheck "Display Intranet sites in Compatibility View"

Developer tools overrides the compatibility view and displays the page in IE11. Compatibility makes the page display as IE5

Question 3

Found a fix that worked for me...

I was using IE11, Win7 enterprise, and latest version of adobe reader XI which I had just updated.

The website I had a problem with, was using <object></object> to do the imbedded PDF (it was a CQ5 component, if that matters).

I didn't have to modify the html -- this is what i did:

1) Go to internet options in IE

2) Go to Advanced

3) Click "Reset...". I also clicked "delete personal settings" since I mainly use IE for testing web development so there's no much there...

4) Requires computer restart, so do that.

5) When you are back in, open IE11.

6) It will prompt you if you want to use it's default settings/accelerators. I said YES (i usually always said NO to this, in the past).

7) Open site, and enjoy success.

It also fixed this example site for me, so I know something good happened. http://acroeng.adobe.com/Test_Files/browser_tests/embedded/embed2.html

I tried doing the "TabProcGrowth" fix in the registry (some other solution i found earlier), but that didn't work either. Only resetting IE to scratch worked for me.

Question 4

Solution: Install adobe acrobat reader.

It appears to me that IE uses whatever reader is installed to view embedded or natively opened PDFs, whereas chrome, edge and other modern browsers comes with a PDF viewer of sorts.