Lets say you want to add an article to your WordPress site. You want it to print “just right” so pasting it into a new page or post won’t work. What’s the best solution? Use an Adobe PDF file to make it print just right. Don’t know how to do that? Here is a simple guide.
There are two stages to add PDF files to your pages.
- Make the PDF (if you already have the PDF then you can skip to stage 2)
- Upload the PDF to wordpress
Here is a quick guide:
How to Make a PDF (Mac)
- Open your document in Microsoft Word (or whatever word processor you use)
- Go to file -> print
- Click PDF (Instead of selecting your default printer )
- Click Print -> Save as PDF
- Pick a file name and location for your new PDF (The easiest place to find the file is either in Documents or on your desktop)
- Open the PDF in Preview to make sure the PDF looks just right
- Your done
How to Make a PDF (Windows)
- Download CutePDF (free)
- Install CutePDF (you may need to reboot your computer)
- Open your document in Microsoft Word (or whatever word processor you use)
- Go to file -> print
- Select the CutePDF printer (Instead of selecting your default printer )
- Click Print
- Pick a file name and location for your new PDF (The easiest place to find the file is either in My Documents or on your desktop)
- Open the PDF in Acrobat Reader to make sure the PDF looks just right
- Your done
How to Upload a PDF to WordPress
Step 1
Open up the wordpress post/page you want to add the PDF to
OR
Create a new post/page by clicking Write
Step 2
Click add media. Its the sun looking icon inside the red circle.
Step 3
Click Choose files to upload
Step 4
Select the PDF you want to upload.
Step 5
- Type in a title, caption and description (optional)
- Click Insert Into Post
Your Done!
Feel free to leave a comment if you have a question.
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23 users responded in this post
Well….. you could do that. Or you could just download openoffice. http://www.openoffice.org
> Brian
thanks for the great information. I, already, used it and posted it to my blog
D
Hi!
I did what you instructed in this tutorial, but after I click on INSERT INTO POST only text appear on the new page, which is the title of the ebook.
Do I have to download that cutePDF?
Thanks!
Instead of going this approach, it might make more sense to upload your PDF to a system like docstoc (http://docstoc.com) and then use the Lizzer bookmarklet to insert the docstoc document directly into your WordPress blog (with just one click).
This tends to be the most user-friendly approach to putting PDF’s on your blog.
Thats a real clear description, but my target is to create a PDF from the website for download by user themself.
Otherwise it´s to much to maintain.
Until now I tried several PDF-writer for wordpress, but all do not work properly.
Who knows a absolut good one. ?
Weird, I tried this and the link 404′s.
It looks like the path to the file is being rewritten by .htaccess because I used the cleaner url for the permalink? That’s the only guess I have.
I make templates for cms systems and have only just started with WordPress. Seems to me that clean urs should work with other media types?
Or maybe something else happened? Anyhoo, I know this isn’t a form here, but if anyone has some tips, I would sure appreciate it.
(PS, I landed here from google searching the following: “Add PDF to WordPress”)
First, I want to thank you for the great information on making a .pdf file from a Word document. My printer option is PDF995, but otherwise everything went as you said.
Second, and the reason I read your article, is that although I am able to upload .pdf files successfully to my wordpress posts, they require two clicks to open them. The link appears in the post just fine, but when the user clicks on it, another screen appears with only the title of the post and a repeat of the link. This confuses readers, and some of them give up altogether. Do you know of a way to eliminate the extra screen?
Thanks for you advise!
If you create a link to the actual pdf there will only be one click. Right click on the link (from the first click) and then click “copy link location” or something similar to get the link. You will know you have the right one when it ends with “.pdf”
The link url look something like http://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/file.pdf if you link to that you should be good to go.
Let me know if that works for you.
-Thomas
Thanks for responding. I’m not getting anything like you’ve described when I right click on the links on the first page of my post. The URL that shows up in the address bar on the second page is: http://1stspanish.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/POR-VS-PARA-EJERCICIO-2.pdf.
But that URL appears after the first click and before the second one. By that time the readers are confused, because a “Leave a Reply” box appears below, so they leave a comment stating that they can’t find the link (which is above, just below the title).
I appreciate your help.
Thanks for you sharing. I will use on my blog. thanks again.
Hi, thanks for this great info, to linking a pdf to word-press.It is amazing what can be done using this web platform.
Toujours de tres bonne info , merci
This is genuinley useful thanks
It works quite nicely . Thank you for sharing
thanks!!! it’s just what i’ve been looking for.
Awesome helpful!!! Thanks
My uploaded media opens to a page with this: “Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.”
Is this a permissions issue? I’ve set my wp-content to 777
Austin,
It may be an issue in your settings. Go to settings -> general and settings -> misc and make sure the upload folder is set correctly.
Your process doesn’t work for me. I get this message. The PDF is “locked” per copyright rules. I have the rights to post or email it. I get this message:
“Make Technology Work for You.pdf” has failed to upload due to an error
Unable to create directory /mnt/local/home/mamccauley/catalystcomm.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08. Is its parent directory writable by the server?
Mary Anne,
Are you able to upload images? It sounds like the folder permissions on your website need to be fixed.
For help see http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions
Thank you,this was a great post,very easy to understand,now I know how to ad a pdf to my site.
So, when I do this I get a link to click on and then the PDF opens. That’s not what I’m looking for, I already knew how to do that. What I actually want is for the entire newsletter to appear, not a link. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Isn’t there anyway which can also show the entire PDF as image file or any thumbshot ?
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