Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Embedding PDF files into your posts




In my last post I outlined a lesson plan and I provided links for two PDF files. In order to get the files, you need to click on the link that will take you to the file page. Well, that is the usual procedure. The only problem is that the readers will then leave your page and might never return. Why should they continue reading your carefully written post once they got the PDF files?

There has to be a better way.

There are quite a few tutorials on how to embed PDF files, but I used this one. It worked like a dream, as you will see in the comments, but then Fileden got infested withTrojans. I was going to delete this post completely, but then I decided to follow S. Bolos's advice and try EmbedIt. Here is the result:







So, what do you think? When you read a blog post, do you prefer the traditional way (clicking on a link which takes you to another page), or this? And, if you are a blogger, do you think embedding PDF into your post would encourage the readers to stay on your page?

By the way, you can also upload your files to Scribd and it will generate the embed code for you.

5 comments:

Paul said...

Hi Natasa,

That definitely seems like a better solution than having people leave your page, but is there a way to avoid making people have to scroll horizontally? It makes it hard work to read the text.

Alternatively, I usually have any links to documents or other sites open up a separate window. That way people can maintain your page open, while also looking at the external content.

Natasa said...

Hi Paul,
I tried to do something about that problem with the second text. I simply kept changing the Height and Width parameters until the whole text fitted the page (ended up with 500x700, by the way).
This was an interesting experiment and it is good to know there is this option, but I have to say that I prefer the old way, especially if you have the page open in a new window. It is a more elegant solution (I think).

S. Bolos said...

Have you ever used Embed It?

http://embedit.in/

Natasa said...

Wow! I love Embed It. Spiro, thank you so much.

Anonymous said...

Hi. This service here allows you to easily edit your PDF documents.
http://goo.gl/TQp4hB

You can fill out PDF form, save it, fax it, and email it.

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