Mike Doherty

<h3>Basic use</h3>
<p>To embed a PDF you’ve uploaded to your WordPress site’s media<br />
library, simply put the URL for the attachment page in your<br />
post on its own line. The PDF will be embedded with the<br />
default settings at that location, as if it were using oEmbed.</p>
<h4>Examples:</h4>
<pre><code>Post short URL:

http://localhost/?p=9

Attachment default URL:

http://localhost/?attachment_id=9

Attachment pretty URL:

http://localhost/test/report1/

Media direct URL:

<p><a href="http://localhost/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/report1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc">Click to access report1.pdf</a></p>
</code></pre>
<p>This doesn’t work for PDFs hosted on other websites, or if you<br />
need to change the parameters.</p>
<h3>Using the <code>[pdf]</code> shorttag</h3>
<p>If the PDF isn’t in your WordPress site’s media library, or if<br />
you want to customize any parameters for the embed, then use<br />
the <code>[pdf]...[/pdf]</code> shorttag. Between the tags, you’ll provide<br />
the URL for the PDF to embed. If the PDF is in your WordPress<br />
site’s media library, you can either give the attachment page<br />
URL, or the URL to the PDF file directly.</p>
<p>The <code>[pdf]</code> shorttag accepts several optional parameters:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>width</code> – sets the width of the frame the PDF is embedded in.<br />
By default, this is set to 100%.</li>
<li><code>height</code> – sets the height of the frame the PDF is embedded<br />
in. By default, this is unset.</li>
<li><code>title</code> – sets the title of the PDF, for use in the fallback<br />
link text.</li>
<li><code>open_params</code> – sets the <a href="https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/PDFOpenParameters.pdf" rel="nofollow ugc">PDF open params</a><br />
which control how the PDF file is displayed in the embed frame.<br />
These are poorly supported in browsers.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Examples:</h4>
<pre><code>Post short URL: [pdf width="200px"]http://localhost/?p=9[/pdf]
Attachment default URL: [pdf height="500em"]http://localhost/?attachment_id=9[/pdf]
Attachment pretty URL: [pdf title="Report 1"]http://localhost/test/report1/[/pdf]
Media direct URL: [pdf]http://localhost/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/report1.pdf[/pdf]
Change PDF open params: [pdf open_params="page=10&view=Fit"]http://localhost/?p=9[/pdf]
</code></pre>
<h3>Compatibility</h3>
<p>The PDF should be embedded in the page, with the document scaled so it fills the<br />
embed frame horizontally. Unfortunately, embedding PDFs is not well-supported.</p>
<h4>Auto-loading embedded PDFs</h4>
<p>Unlike with images, web browsers may not automatically download and display<br />
embedded PDFs when the page is loaded. For security reasons, some users prefer<br />
not to allow the PDF plugin to run unless they trust the website the PDF comes<br />
from. This generally leaves a grey rectangle that the user may click on to allow<br />
the PDF to be downloaded and displayed.</p>
<h4>PDF open parameters</h4>
<p>As of v0.0.8, you can set the <a href="https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/PDFOpenParameters.pdf" rel="nofollow ugc">PDF open parameters</a><br />
by setting <code>open_params</code> in the shortcode, as shown above. This is unlikely to actually<br />
anything, since PDF open parameters are poorly supported in browsers. But you can try!<br />
Provide the parameters as a query string: <code>page=1&view=Fit</code>. Refer to the Adobe<br />
documentation on what parameters are available.</p>
<h4>Chrome</h4>
<p>The PDF should be scaled/zoomed within the embed frame so that the full<br />
horizontal width of the paper fills the frame. This is <a href="https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=64309" rel="nofollow ugc">not<br />
supported</a> in<br />
Chrome’s default PDF viewer, so the document will probably be scaled to 100%,<br />
which may either mean the document doesn’t fill the frame, or, more likely, the<br />
document is too wide for the frame, and the right-hand side of the document is<br />
hidden.</p>
<h4>Internet Explorer</h4>
<p>Internet Explorer requires a PDF plugin to render embedded PDFs. Generally,<br />
that’s Adobe Reader. Without such a plugin, the fallback download link will be<br />
used.</p>
<h4>Mobile browsers</h4>
<p>In particular, mobile browsers may show a grey box instead of the embedded PDF,<br />
and will download the file when it is clicked. Other mobile browsers might embed<br />
the PDF, but won’t allow it to scroll.</p>
<h3>Alternatives</h3>
<p>Your best alternative is to <strong>not</strong> embed PDFs. PDFs are bad for many reasons:<br />
not easily indexed by search engines, not easily accessible by readers who use<br />
assistive technologies, poorly supported by web browsers (as seen above) and so<br />
on. They’re just <strong>bad</strong> and you should avoid embedding PDFs if you can.</p>
<p>If you <em>really</em> can’t, then you might consider using another solution like<br />
<a href="https://pdfobject.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">https://pdfobject.com/</a> or <a href="https://mozillalabs.com/en-US/pdfjs/" rel="nofollow ugc">PDF.js</a>.</p>


Vanilla PDF Embed

Embeds PDFs in your pages and posts, without using JS.

Vanilla PDF Embed vs PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce