Display PDF files inside Joomla Content/Article

I was recently working on a Joomla based web site design for a client, and he had requested that the site display PDF files he provided me inside articles for his portfolio pages on his web site.

My first thought was there would be some kind of a plugin/module to extend Joomla to display a PDF file in joomla, but was not able to find any that worked for me. Then I had a brainstorm.

There is a great module for Joomla called Sourcerer (http://www.nonumber.nl/extensions/sourcerer?tab=download) that allows you to put in any kind of html/javascript or php code directly in any article/content in joomla.

By using this module for Joomla, I could essentially use the normal way of embedding the pdf file so the file would be displayed in the page inline using the acrobat plugin. One thought came to mind although. People may not have the Adobe Acrobat plugin installed in their web browser, and it could be to much to ask of a site visitor to have to download/install it to view the pdf files.

So my second part of this brainstorm was to use the site Scribd (http://www.scribd.com). Scribd lets you upload many format of documents and then provides a flash based “reader” that you can embed in your web site. So this solution works great for this purpose, as everyone should have flash player installed in their browser. It’s as simple as uploading the source PDF file to scribd, then copying the embed code into your article, using the sourcerer tags to allow Joomla to use the code.. and there we go.. a easy way to display a PDF file in an article, and no need to make sure the viewer has acrobat installed in their browser.