CentrioHost Blog

Imagine you’re a teacher with a simple WordPress site. You’re getting excited about the new school year yet you’d like to give your students some digital-friendly documents for them to prepare for classes and understand the material. Your first order of business is to share the class rubric with all of the assignments and tests throughout the semester. You have the PDF file, but you’re unable to make it all that printer-friendly as a blog post or page.

Why doesn’t WordPress have a PDF viewer where visitors can view a full PDF and download it if they want? WordPress has plenty of features, but a PDF viewer isn’t one of them. Luckily, the wonderful world of WordPress PDF viewer plugins come to the rescue.

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

Take our example of the teacher and the rubric above. In this situation, there’s no substitute for a viewable and printable PDF on the class website. Chances are, half of the students will throw out printed handouts and the idea of copying and pasting the PDF content into a blog post is a formatting and printing nightmare.

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.

Why This PDF Viewer Rocks

• 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

• 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.

As for the coolest features, check them out below:

Why This PDF Viewer Rocks

• 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

• 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 $17, 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.

Why This PDF Viewer Rocks

• 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 documen