A list of 7 best and free WordPress plugins for viewing and embedding PDF files in your websites and blogs.
A PDF file is one of the most popular formats of the file extension. Another reason to use a PDF format is to retain your design layout and structure. One of its major benefits is being able to retain the original formatting, images, and graphics.
WordPress is widely used as a platform to create blogs and websites. And to make the website more user-friendly and useful, WordPress plugins are used which enable users to embed different types of files in their websites.
The PDF format is an industry standard for sharing documents. While you can embed PDF files on your WordPress website directly, you’ll save time and have better control over the appearance of PDF files with a plugin. In this article, we’ll gather the 7 best PDF viewer plugins currently available on WordPress.org that make it easy to view and share files online. Let’s get started.
1. PDF Embedder
Upload PDF files and embed them directly into your site’s posts and pages. It works as simple as adding images! Your PDF files will be automatically sized to their natural size and shape. You can also specify a width and the correct height will be calculated automatically.
This PDF Embedder plugin is fully responsive, so the embedded PDF will also look perfect, on any device. Additionally, the pdf embedder will automatically resize whenever the browser dimensions change.
2. DearFlip
A stunning 3D flipbook alternative for your flat lifeless PDFs. DearFlip’s easy post structure makes it easy to create flipbook inside WordPress. Create 3D flipbook, make your PDFs interactive and generate more customer attention.
Features:
- Realistic 3D flipbook powered by modern WebGL technology
- Reliable 2D flipbook that works on low-end devices too, and is used as fallback
- Easy WordPress Post structure to create flipbook and shortcode to display flipbook
- PDF and Image Support
- Embedded inline flipbook: is the default structure to display flipbook
- Basic Popup: Display flipbook on demand, best for multiple flipbook in a single page
- Table of contents for PDF
- Custom table of contents creator
- Page thumbnails preview
- Deep linking to pages of a flipbook via share button
- Categories to organize flipbook
- Multiple flipbook shortcodes to display multiple books
- RTL mode to Arabian and RTL mode languages
- PDF download enable and disable
- Supports any number of pages, more than 1000 pages and 500MB.
- Partial loading (on-demand pages) make using 500MB files load and start with just 5MB of data
3. Embed Any Document
Embed Any Document WordPress plugin lets you embed your PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents easily in your WordPress website. The plugin integrates Google Docs Viewer and Microsoft Office Online to display your documents on your website.
Features:
- Easy to Upload and Embed. Embed Any Document is integrated seamlessly into the Classic Editor and the Block Editor. With a click of ‘Add Document’ button it lets you upload documents and embed them.
- No 3rd party plugin needed. The plugin uses Google Docs Viewer and Microsoft Office Online’s services to display the documents in your website. You will not require any additional browser plugins to view the documents and you can expect maximum compatibility for your documents.
- Option to choose the viewer. You can choose between Google Docs Viewer and Microsoft Office Online to display your document. If one service is down, you can switch to another easily. EAD also supports browser-based viewer for PDF files.
- Cross-browser compatibility. The viewers are mobile-ready and cross-browser compatible.
- Clean and Minimal UI. Embed Any Document comes with a clean and clutter-free UI.
4. PDF Viewer for Elementor
This plugin helps you embed PDF documents to Elementor quickly and easily.
5. PDF Poster
Embed PDF files in posts, pages, widget areas, page blocks, and theme templates. Very easy to use, user-friendly & very lightweight plugin. Gutenberg PDF Viewer Block is available as well.
6. PDF.js Viewer
Incorporate Mozilla’s PDF.js viewer into your pages and posts via a Gutenberg block or a simple shortcode. PDF.js is a javascript library for displaying pdf pages within browsers.
Features:
- Gutenberg Block and Shortcode
- Elegant Theme that adapts to dark and light mode (if the browser supports dynamic CSS)
- Customizable buttons
- Page navigation drawer
- Search functionality
- Protected PDF password entry
- Loading bar & displays partially loaded PDF (great for huge PDFs!)
- Document Outline
- Zoom settings
- Classic Editor: Easy to use editor media button that generates the shortcode for you
- Support for mobile devices
7. Wonder PDF Embed
Yet another WordPress plugin to embed and display PDF files on your WordPress website by using Mozilla’s PDF.js library.
Features:
- Easy to use
- Responsive PDF viewer
- Embed and display PDF files in WordPress posts or pages
- Works with the premium plugin Wonder Lightbox to open a PDF file in a lightbox popup
- Works with the premium plugin Wonder Carousel to create a PDF carousel
- Options to hide the download button, the print button, and the text selection tool menu item in the PDF viewer toolbar. Please note: the options only use CSS and JavaScript code to hide the relative menu items/buttons in the PDF.js viewer toolbar. It’s NOT a DRM (Digital Rights Management) scheme to protect the PDF file. It does NOT stop experienced visitors from downloading, printing or copying text from the PDF file.
Conclusion:
If you are looking for a really good PDF viewer plugin for WordPress, I hope that this article will help you out decide which one to go with. All of them work pretty well and they all have their advantages and disadvantages.
If you have found this article useful, please feel free to leave your valuable comments below. You can also search for more information on our website. Finally, do not forget to tell your friends about this resource!
