Embedding PDFs in Your Course

Embedding PDFs in Your Course#

Tags: educator how-to

The PDF embed tool allows you to add PDF documents to your course. It uses an the browser’s built-in PDF viewing capability, and provides options for downloading the document or its original source.

An embedded PDF showing trigonometry functions.

PDFs have significant accessibility challenges. They are finalized documents intended for printing exactly specified copies. This makes them difficult for screen readers and other assistance technology to interpret. You are strongly encouraged to use alternative means of presenting the information in these documents, such as a text component. Please visit the Accessibility Best Practices Checklist for more information, which also includes a guide on improving PDF accessibility if they must be used.

Additionally, viewing PDFs on mobile devices results in a poor learner experience.

Nevertheless, the PDF embed block exists to handle the case of a document being unavailable in other formats, or for when variations in representing the document are unacceptable.

Add an Embedded PDF in Open edX Studio#

  1. Ensure the PDF embed tool is enabled in your course.

    To enable the pdf embed tool in Studio, add the "pdf" key to the Advanced Module List on the Advanced Settings page. (Be sure to include the quotation marks around the key value.) For more information, see Enable Additional Exercises and Tools.

  2. On the Course Outline page, open the unit where you want to add the PDF.

  3. Under Add New Component click Advanced and then select PDF.

    The new component is added to the unit with a default example PDF embedded.

    The PDF embed component in Studio.

  4. In the new component, click the Edit button, or pencil icon.

  5. In the Name field, enter the name for the new component. This will be displayed above the component as a title.

  6. In the PDF URL field, set the URL of the PDF you would like to embed.

    If you do not have an existing URL for your PDF, you may upload the PDF by adding a course file and copy the URL of the resulting handout.

  7. Toggle the PDF Download Allowed field to optionally display a download link for the PDF.

    Note

    PDF display is handled by the browser’s built-in PDF viewer. The option to hide the download button will not hide the browser’s built-in download button if it provides one. A determined learner will always be able to download a PDF.

  8. In the Source document URL field, optionally add the URL to the source of the PDF document.

    This might be, for instance, the PowerPoint or Word document this PDF is based on. Providing a source URL is heavily encouraged, as source files tend to have better accessibility than PDFs. Please visit the Accessibility Best Practices Checklist for more information.

  9. In the Source document button text field, you can change the display text of the source download link.

  10. Select Save.

Maintenance chart

Review Date

Working Group Reviewer

Release

Test situation

09/02/2026

Fox Piacenti

Verawood

Pass
Contents