How to Link to a PDF in Joomla
Written by Denise Witter Monday, 21 June 2010 11:34
Having your web pages render flawlessly in Joomla! is one of the benefits of using the Joomla! CMS. There are times, though, that you might want to display information in ways other than standard website format. One of the easiest ways to display this kind of information in Joomla! or on the web in general, is displaying it in PDF format. Linking to a PDF in Joomla! may not be intuitive at first, but once you get the hang of it you'll see that linking to a PDF in Joomla! isn't hard. There are just a few steps you have to follow. Click on the "Read More" link below to see the tutorial of how to link to a PDF in Joomla!
Here, we start at the Joomla! Admin Panel.
Next, we need to go to the Media Manager. To go the the Joomla! Media Manager, we roll the cursor over the"Site" button in the upper left corner and move the cursor down to "Media Manager." Click on the Media Manager button.
Once you're in the Media Manager, you'll notice a row of folders and underneath, several rows of icons. Click on the folder that reads "Stories."
Once you've clicked on Stories, you'll see another row of folders at the top and icons in rows underneath. Above the row of folders, just to the right, is a blank text input area. Next to the text input is a button that reads "Create Folder." Here, we need to create a folder that will hold our PDFs. You can name it anything you want, but for this tutorial I've named it "pdfFiles." Upload your PDF to this folder.
Now, we have to go the the Joomla! Article Manager. Here, you can create the article that you want to add the PDF link to or you can pick an article you've already written. The choice is yours. I'll be adding the PDF link directly to this article. I've named the PDF "testpdf."
Once in your article, type in a phrase that will direct your website visiters to your PDF. I'm going to type: See the PDF. My example below is a screenshot of this article. Highlight your phrase. Normally, I would've only highlighted the "See the PDF," but to make it stand out for this tutorial, I've highlighted the entire sentence. Highlight your phrase and click on the link button in the Joomla! editor. A little box will pop up. For the URL, type in the full path that leads to "images/stories/your pdf folder/your pdf.pdf" and choose the option to open it in a new window. That way you don't have to worry about your website visitors inadvertantly leaving your Joomla! website.
Click on the following sentence: I'm going to type:See the PDF. And Voila! A PDF opens.
