How to add a PDF file to your website

In this article I'm going to show you how to add a PDF (Portable Document Format) file to your website.

Linking to a PDF file

Most novice website users are aware that you can link off to another website or webpage from your own website. However they can become confused when they try to figure out linking to a PDF document that they might need to share.

It's actually a very simple process to link to a PDF file, if you've linked to another webpage before than you should have no issues at all figuring it out, as it's essentially the same process.

If you are simply trying to directly type out a HTML link to a PDF document, you would use the following format, in this example our sales.pdf document is in the same directory as the HTML page we are linking to it from:

<a href="/support/sales.pdf">Sales figures</a>

This would create a link saying Sales figures, and when visitors click on the link, it should either open up their PDF reader automatically, or prompt the visitor to download the PDF file.

Alternative PDF linking methods

In some cases, you might not be directly modifying HTML code, and in these cases you would typically need to link to a PDF file differently. For instance if you're using the Premium Website builder you would want to read about uploading and linking files in the Premium Website Builder.

In some cases you might also want to be able to display information from a PDF document without your visitor having to have a PDF reader installed, you could use something like Google Docs in order to accomplish this. We have a guide on how to embed a PDF in a Joomla 2.5 article that explains this process in-depth.