The Best WordPress PDF Viewer Plugins

What is a WordPress PDF Viewer Plugin and When Would You Use It?

PDFs are great for many situations, and a PDF plugin allows you to embed a full WordPress PDF viewer into a WordPress page.

In short, a standard PDF viewer enables users to see a PDF as if the file were saved on their own computer. They get the capabilities expected of a PDF along with some other handy features the WordPress plugin developers have thrown in there.

When Would You Use a PDF Viewer Plugin?

• When you already have a large document formatted and made into a PDF. It would be a waste to rewrite or reformate.
• For displaying large documents that would look silly as a blog post or page.
• If you need to share links to documents that shouldn’t be modified by the people who download them. Technically you can convert a PDF to an editable document, but there are ways to secure the PDFs or at least make them harder to modify.
• When you’re sharing documentation that needs to be signed and dated by numerous people. For example, a real estate agent can either send out the same contract to hundreds of clients or simply have them all download it from a website.
• If you’d like to share something online and not have it discoverable by search engines. One example might be an eBook, where you’d rather protect the content and not have the search engines crawling for it.
• When you need to generate a PDF based on some of your current website content, like a series of blog posts you’d like to turn into an eBook.

The Best WordPress PDF Viewers

1/ PDF Embedder

The PDF Embedder plugin has been around for some time now, and it’s one of the cleanest ways to present your PDFs on a website. The free version of PDF Embedder includes the majority of the features you’ll need, with the quick upload button, PDF embed function and your regular navigation buttons.

If you need advanced features like mobile-friendliness, a fullscreen button and page jump technology, the premium version of PDF Embedder is right for you.

The Pro’s of PDF Embedder

• The PDF upload only takes one simple click.
• Your PDF snaps into place depending on the size of the screen. You can also adjust the dimensions manually.
• The plugin only uses JavaScript for display, so the viewing experience is much smoother than if it were to utilize iframes.
• You can get premium features like full-screen mode, PDF security, and continuous scrolling through pages.
• The premium version of the plugin only has a small one-time payment.

The Downsides of PDF Embedder

• The free version doesn’t secure any of your content, so someone could technically come and grab your PDF if they wanted to. Of course, you can upgrade to the premium version to solve this problem.
• The page flip buttons are small and in an odd location towards the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

2. Google Doc Embedder

The main benefit of going with the Google Doc Embedder is that it supports a wide range of file types. You don’t need to convert your files to Google Docs, but I’m assuming that used to be the case when this plugin was created. You won’t get sold on a premium version for the Google Doc Embedder, so all of the features covered are given out for free.

The pro’s of Google Doc Embedder Plugin

• A quick embed button shows up in your WordPress post editor. Therefore, you can add PDFs and other files while you’re writing up a post.
• The plugin supports everything from PDFs to Word docs and PSDs to OTFs. The file support is most likely why you’d select Google Doc Embedder.
• The plugin currently translates into ten different languages allowing for more people to access it and use the plugin on their sites.
• You also have the option to work with shortcodes if that’s more your style.

The Downsides of Google Doc Embedder Plugin

• Much of the functionality from this plugin relies on Google hosting your documentation. Usually, you’ll have no problem with this, but you don’t technically have full control over your content. In short, the PDFs aren’t being hosted on your own server, so they’re never completely secure.
• It doesn’t have an upload feature for pulling local documents, so you’re required to upload your documents, then copy and paste a URL. This is a somewhat outdated way of doing things.

3. PDF Viewer for WordPress

For one payment of $40, you gain access to the majority of WordPress PDF viewer features you and your visitors need. In fact, PDF Viewer for WordPress is one of the most powerful, feature-rich viewer plugins on the market.

 

It’s fully responsive, so all of your PDF files get displayed nicely on every device. A beginner wouldn’t have any trouble working with the plugin since it has a quick embed function that supports unlimited PDF files and sizes.

The pro’s of  PDF Viewer

• It can be translated into more than 100 languages.
• The plugin connects to Google Analytics for tracking how many people read and download your PDFs.
• Bookmarks and links are supported in the documents.
• Shortcodes are available if you’d rather insert PDFs that way.
• The developer offers some of the best support and documentation in this niche.

The Downsides of PDF Viewer for WordPress

• The PDF Viewer for WordPress plugin doesn’t have any tools for securing your PDFs.

4. Flowpaper

Flowpaper has an advanced-looking WordPress PDF viewer without any price tag. It looks nice, but the back-end controls are far from user-friendly. If you’re a more advanced developer who wants a beautiful, free PDF viewer, this might be the one for you. If you’re a beginner, you may get tripped up by the code customization and storage limits.

The pro’s of Flowpaper WordPress

• Users have three options for getting their PDFs online. One of them involves hosting the PDF somewhere else and pasting in the link. Another lets you upload to WordPress. The third option uploads the PDF to the Flowpaper cloud.
• To embed a document, all you need do is to have it uploaded to your WordPress website. When you do this, a shortcode for the file will be generated. After that, copy and paste the shortcode right where you want the file to be displayed, and you are done.

The Downsides of Flowpaper WordPress

• If you don’t host your PDFs on the Flowpaper cloud you’re limited to 15MB per publication.
• Flowpaper is known for not supporting all browsers and devices right out of the box. There are ways to fix this though.
• The PDF embed process requires you to use a shortcode. Some might rather have a quick upload button that drops the PDF into the post without a code.
• All customizations must be done by editing code.

5. EmbedPress

EmbedPress is a complete plugin that allows you to add and display PDF files in your WordPress posts and pages. It’s easy to use and you can upload your PDF documents through the media library and place them anywhere on your site.

EmbedPress also lets you upload other types of media to your WordPress website. You can use it to add videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or Twitch.

Besides that, EmbedPress lets you upload Google Maps, docs, forms, sheets, Facebook posts, audio files, and much more.

6. E2Pdf

Looking to create powerful WordPress PDF documents without having to write codes, E2Pdf plugin is for you. It has also some unique features which include:

• Merging WordPress data or web forms to PDFs
• Enables visitors to send editable PDFs, with signatures and images inclusive
• Add images, text and form field

This plugin also comes with a built-in PDF document and forms editor.

Above all, it’s free!

7. PDF & Print by BestWebSoft – WordPress Plugin

With this plugin, you can add a button for creating and printing PDF files to your published posts, pages, and also archives in WordPress.

Talking about customization and flexibility, this plugin is second to none. For instance, it’s entirely up to you to determine where the button will be placed in a post or a page. You can also set the size of the pdf view window, hide the pdf from certain users, set custom margins on the document, and lots more.

Furthermore, in the paid version, you can set watermarks, customize the header and footer of the document, make a pdf file impossible to copy, etc. It costs for $33.99, $250, $309.80 for annual, membership and lifetime respectively. 

 

8. DK PDF

DK PDF is a WordPress plugin known for its post-conversion button that converts pages into PDFs

This plugin welcomes you to play with customization. Personalize the button, the way PDFs look, and the header of the files in the DK PDF Settings tabs.

When setting up PDF Button tab, you can change the button text by typing what you want in the blank field. You can set post types as: post, pages, attachment, and doc. Then, the Action option lets your documents open in the new window or downloaded. Finally, set your preferred alignment and whether the button comes before or after the content.

The next setup tab lets you choose the vertical or horizontal orientation of the PDF. It has options to set the preferred font and document margins. One more thing to set is the PDF Header and Footer. Just upload an image for the header logo then set show header and footer title and pagination.

 

Conclusion

In this post, we shared with you 8 powerful plugins that allow your visitors to view pdf documents right within your WordPress website. In actual fact, some WordPress plugins even allow visitors to convert your posts to pdf files which they can either view in your website or download to their machine.

Now that you have the lists of PDF viewer WordPress plugins, you can choose the one that suits you best, simple viewer or animated flipbook. Keep on sharing the information with the world, and don’t let any little obstacle stop you!