Adobe has released a PDF Embed WordPress plugin that offers additional ways to view PDFs online in a way that makes them user-friendly, pleasantly interactive, and useful.
The new plugin makes PDF more usable on the web, with four different ways to view a file without the inconvenience.
Adobe’s plugins page in the official WordPress plugin repository explains:
“Adobe Embedded PDF Viewer is a FREE plugin that makes it easy to embed a high-fidelity PDF viewer in your posts and pages with collaboration, security, and analytics.
Deliver the highest quality PDF rendering available and enhance the user experience with custom viewer modes and digital collaboration through annotation tools. Enhance the viewer with PDF usage analytics to understand how users interact with your documents.”
Adobe PDF on the web
The strength of PDF (Portable Document Format) is that it is platform and operating system independent.
Adobe PDF documents can be viewed regardless of whether a user is using an Apple, Linux, Windows, Chrome, or Android device.
The disadvantage of PDF documents is that they have to be downloaded and opened in a separate app.
Anyone who has tried reading a restaurant’s menu online knows the hassle of waiting for a download and then waiting for an app to appear to display the menu.
Although PDF is ubiquitous, it seems to be unpopular almost everywhere due to its inherent user-unfriendliness.
Screenshot of a Reddit discussionAdobe Embedded PDF Viewer plugin for WordPress
Adobe has announced a new WordPress plugin that allows WordPress publishers to view PDF documents online in four different ways.
There are also configurable options that enable features like allowing or disallowing downloading or printing.
Four PDF viewer options
Lightbox modal
This will display the document in a modal overlaid on the web page. This allows a user to view the document without leaving the web page they are on.
size container
This method displays the PDF like a landscape presentation with a slide view interface.
This is the default display version of the plugin.
Screenshot of the measured containerinline display
This embed option displays the PDF within the content of the website post or page, fits itself into the page, and displays all PDF pages at once.
full window
Matches the parent (the container it is in). This mode enables annotation tools and navigation with thumbnails, which is the difference between Full Window and Larger Container modes.
How to use the plugin
The WordPress plugin allows publishers to easily achieve what was only available to developers who had to write code to take advantage of the Adobe PDF API.
With this plugin, no special code needs to be created. Just install it and start working with the plugin inside the Gutenberg block editor interface.
According to the official announcement:
“With the PDF Embed API, you can control the size and position of the PDF file, the viewing experience, and get access to a powerful integration API to handle events and provide detailed analytics.
WordPress developers willing to write some code have always been able to use our PDF Embed API, but today we’re excited to announce the release of a new plugin that will make working with the API even easier .
The Adobe Embedded PDF Viewer plug-in simplifies the installation, customization and use of the plug-in and provides site administrators at all levels with the ease of adding PDF files to their site.”
Before using the new WordPress plugin, you must sign up for the free Adobe PDF Embed API credentials.
There is a link titled Get Credentials on the official Adobe PDF Embed API documentation page.
Screenshot by authorAdobe Embedded PDF Viewer for WordPress
There are other PDF embed plugins for WordPress, but they require a premium paid version to unlock full page mode and other options that are free in the Adobe version.
Read Adobe’s announcement:
Adobe PDF Embed API now available as a WordPress plugin
Download the official Adobe WordPress plugin:
Adobe embedded PDF viewer
