How to Add a PDF Viewer in WordPress

December 14. 2021

Let’s start this one with an unusual assumption. Since you’re reading this text, there’s a good chance you’re wondering how to add a PDF viewer to your WordPress site. As you can see, we’re able to read minds. Bad jokes aside, we’re also able to help you out on the aforementioned subject. In the text below, we’ll show you a quick and easy guide on how to add a PDF viewer in WordPress. You’ll see it’s nothing you can’t do. Quite the contrary! That being said, feel free to stick around and check out some fantastic WP tips.

What’s so important about adding a PDF viewer to my website?

Did you know that WP doesn’t embed PDFs like it does video, audio, or other multimedia formats? That’s why you’ll need to install a PDF viewer plugin on your website. There are a couple of reasons why one would want to do this. We’ll gladly show them to you:

• This type of program allows website users to view embedded PDFs. It makes reading PDFs on a certain website more accessible and convenient.
• Without a PDF viewer, website accessibility would be more difficult, both for the publisher and the reader.
• As one can assume, with PDF viewer – online interaction is enhanced, which subsequently brings more folks to the website.
• It’s harder to display a PDF document on your website without this plugin.

All in all: a PDF website makes your site more user-friendly. In other words: it will become faster and more accessible, which is something the online audience knows how to reward.

What are the options?

There’s a number of great PDF plugins you can add to your WP page. We’ll show you our selection:

• PDF Embedder – probably the best PDF viewing plugin (over 300k users).
• Algori PDF Viewer – gives you the ability to zoom in/out, rotate and scroll PDF documents.
• PDF Poster – it’s very easy to use. Also, it’s one of the simplest and fastest plugins out there.
• FlowPaper – this one comes with a number of cool features. For example, you can add background audio to your PDF.
• Embed Any Document – as the name suggests, it’s compatible with many document types.
• Elementor PDF Viewer – you won’t need any experience in coding to make your website more attractive, because this plugin will help you out there.
• 3D FlipBook WordPress Plugin – the future of online reading. It allows your visitors to interact with the document in 3D. The name kind of says it all.

Now that we’ve gone through the best PDF viewing WP software, let’s check out how to add a PDF viewer in WordPress.

How to add a PDF viewer in WordPress (with PDF Embedder)

For this presentation, we’ve chosen the famous PDF Embedder. With over 300k users worldwide, it’s the most popular PDF viewing software for WordPress out there. It should come as no surprise that this one’s our pick.

First things first – Install the plugin

Shall we begin? Click on the Plugins toolbar and select the Add new option. Next, you’ll want to type the name of the program in the search box. In this case: it’s the PDF Embedder. Scroll down until it appears, and click on the Install Now button. As you can notice, installation is fairly easy. Next up you’ll have to configure the plugin.

Configure the plugin

Of course, you can immediately start adding PDFs to your webpage, but it might be best to configure the plugin first. This will enable you to customize the size of the PDF on the page. Click on Settings in the admin panel to your left. Select the PDF embedded from the drop-down menu. This will lead you to the main settings page. As you can see, it’s really easy to use. The first thing on your list is to configure the height and width of embedded PDFs. Pick the one that somehow works with the width and height of your pages. You’ll most likely have to do this a couple of times until you get it right. You can also set where you want the toolbar to appear. Click on the Save changes button to save the configuration you’ve set.

It’s time for action: Embed some PDFs

Go to a post or a page that you want to embed a PDF document in. If you want to test this out – create a new one just for that purpose. Anyway, click on the + button and, of course, select the PDF Embedder block. Next, click on the Click here to Open Media Library to Select PDF button. This will allow you to upload a PDF file to your website. Once you’re done with that, click on the Save or Publish button. Good job, you’ve done it! You’ve successfully added a PDF viewer plugin to your WordPress website.

Should you go for a free or premium version?

If you can afford it, go for a premium! There are many features that you’ll miss out on with the free version. To give you an example: with the premium package, you get two new tabs of settings. Now, ain’t that something?

Final words

Alright, so that was that. A quick guide on how to add a pdf viewer in WordPress. Hopefully, you’ve had no trouble adding the plugin to your website. As it’s clear to see, we’re not talking about nuclear physics or something. Adding a PDF viewer is easy as a piece of cake. For more awesome WordPress tips and tricks, visit this page.