I got a request from Brett Anderson regarding a solution for opening PDF files in a maximized dialog window in SharePoint 2010. This code will most likely work in SharePoint 2013, but it has not been tested.

Please note that “Browser file handling” must be set to “Permissive” under “Web application general settings” in SharePoint Central Administration.

This is the code we ended up with after some back and forth:

<!-- Put this code below the list view web part -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$("a[href$='.pdf']").each(function(){
	$(this).removeAttr("onclick").attr("href","javascript:openPDFinDlg(\""+this.href+"\")");	
});

function openPDFinDlg(href){
	var o;
	$("body").append("<div id='pdfTemp' style='min-height:600px;min-width:800px;height:100%;overflow:hidden'><object data='"+href+"' width='100%' height='100%' type='application/pdf' ></object></div>");
	o = {};
	o.html = $("#pdfTemp")[0];
	o.showMaximized = true;
	o.title = href.substring(href.lastIndexOf("/")+1);
	o.dialogReturnValueCallback = openPDFinDlgCallback;	
	SP.UI.ModalDialog.showModalDialog(o);
}

function openPDFinDlgCallback(){
	 // do something here when the dialog closes
}
</script>

Enjoy,
Alexander