How to Embed a PDF into SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint Online is a cloud-based intranet building platform. You can use it to store and share all sorts of content across the organization, such as employee guides and handbooks, tutorials, marketing and sales materials, and reports. Essentially, if you need a knowledge base, it’s a good idea to use SharePoint Online for that. 

SharePoint Online supports many formats, including Word and Powerpoint files, but PDF is probably the most popular and secure one, which makes it a go-to choice for text-based documents.

So what’s the best way to embed your PDF documents into SharePoint pages? 

In this article, we will share the two ways to embed and share PDF documents on SharePoint Online—the standard one and the one that lets you maximize your documents’ effectiveness.

How to Embed a PDF Document into SharePoint: Standard Method

You can upload a PDF document to SharePoint with a ‘File viewer’ web part. This part allows you to add files, such as documents and tables, to your SharePoint pages and make them available for viewing. 

So, for example, if you have a page with a list of documents and you want to highlight one of them, you can make it instantly viewable in the area next to the list right on the page. Here’s how you upload a PDF to SharePoint:

1. Go to the ‘Edit’ mode of your page. Make sure to select the ‘Two columns’ layout.
2. Click on the ‘Plus’ icon and select the ‘File Viewer’ web part.
3. Select the file you would like to embed.

That’s it! The file you’ve selected will appear next to the list of the other documents. You can view it on any device and scroll through it as you would normally do with a built-in browser PDF viewer.

 

• Quick and straightforward.
• Doesn’t require any coding or third-party software.

 

• The document can only be viewed in a single-page mode.
• The built-in SharePoint PDF viewer makes navigating around the document very uncomfortable as you can only scroll it up and down.
• No way to save reading progress.

 

Embedding a PDF Document into SharePoint as an Interactive Flipbook

You can give the look and feel of your PDF documents a serious upgrade if you convert them to interactive HTML5-based flipbooks before embedding. Here’s what a flipbook looks like.

• You can add videos, GIFs, and pop-up images right to the pages of your documents to make them more engaging and informative.
• Navigation around the document is easier, too: there’s a clickable table of contents, search, and page thumbnails that help you find the info you need in seconds.
• You can track how people interact with your documents. The statistics include views, clicks, and session durations to help you analyze the content performance and better understand who uses your documents, when, and how.

Converting Your PDF into an Interactive Flipbook

You can easily make an interactive flipbook from your PDF with FlippingBook. All you need to do is create a FlippingBook account and upload your PDF. 

Once uploaded, FlippingBook will automatically convert it into an HTML5 flipbook and give you the link to it.

From there, you can customize your flipbook to add interactive content, like videos and GIFs, brand it with your logo and color palette, and tweak control buttons. For example, you can disable ‘Share’ and ‘Download’ options to prevent the document from being distributed without your permission.

When you are happy with the look and features of your flipbook, you can embed it into your SharePoint Online page. Or, if you need to share the document there and then, just send the flipbook link to it to your colleagues! 

Embedding an Interactive Flipbook into Your SharePoint Online Page

The process of embedding a flipbook requires a bit more effort than the one with a PDF, but there’s nothing too complicated about it.

1. Get permission from your SharePoint website administrator to embed content from external domains.
2. Open a page in the ‘Pages’ section of your SharePoint website settings:

   3. Click on the ‘Plus’ icon to add a new web part and select the ‘Embed code’ option:

   4. Copy and paste the following code into the Website address or embed code box:  

<iframe title="(title of your flipbook here)" src="https://online.flippingbook.com/view/771043" width="640px" height="480px" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Replace the part https://online.flippingbook.com/view/771043 with the direct link to your flipbook.

That’s it! Your flipbook is embedded and ready to go.

 

• The document has much better visuals and readability.
• It’s easy to navigate around with search, table of contents, and thumbnails tabs.
• You can track readers’ interactions with your documents.
• You can embed the link to a specific page of your document to highlight the most important information.
• In addition to embedding the document, you can also send it as a link outside of SharePoint to let your audience quickly access it at any time.

 

• The embedding process is a bit more complicated than embedding a simple PDF.
• You need to convert your PDF into a flipbook before you can embed it.

If you want to use your documents to the fullest and give your readers the best experience with them, embedding them as flipbooks is what you need! You can check it yourself—FlippingBook offers a 14-day free trial. All you need to do is sign up, and you can convert your PDF into a flipbook in 2 minutes. We wish you the best of luck!

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