Step by step instructions to add a PDF to WordPress plus how to link to it via a WordPress text link or an image.

PDF documents are used widely across the web to provide downloadable white papers and guides. PDFs avoid common compatibility problems – we can open a PDF on almost any platform. PDFs are also crawled and ranked by search engines.

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How do you add a PDF to WordPress and link to it?

For this guide, imagine the PDF has already been created and is on your computer. You’d like to upload it to your website or blog, so it’s publicly accessible.

To start, upload the PDF to your host using the WordPress Media Library.

How to upload a PDF to WordPress

It’s pretty straightforward to upload a PDF to WordPress – read my instructions and then use the images to follow visually.

1. Log in to the WordPress admin area.
2. From the WordPress menu on the left-hand side, click Media.
   You arrive within the Media Library, where WordPress stores photos, graphics, videos, and PDFs.
3. Next to the title at the top of the screen, click Add New.
4. Now click Select Files at the centre of the box.
5. Find the PDF file on your computer, select it and click Open.
6. The file takes a moment to upload into the Media Library.

You’ve completed the first step – uploading the PDF to the WordPress Media Library.

Copy the link of the PDF within the Media Library

To link to it, you need to copy the link to the PDF – also known as the URL, path or address. Because WordPress calls it the LINK, we will also call it the link.

Copy the link to the PDF file.

1. In the Media Library, click on the PDF.
   A window opens, which contains the file information.
2. Highlight everything in the COPY LINK field.
   Over on the right-hand side is a field labelled COPY LINK.
   You need to highlight everything in this field, starting with https://.
   An easy way to do that is to double click, in quick succession, anywhere within the COPY LINK field. The link will turn blue when highlighted.
3. Now click ‘control+C’ (PC), ‘command+C’ (Mac) or right-click on the highlighted text and click ‘Copy’. The clipboard will store the link.
   Tip – I often paste the link to notepad to pick up later.

Great – that is step two completed.

We create a link to the PDF document within a WordPress post or page.

Create a link to a PDF with a WordPress post or page

Text links

The next step is to create a WordPress text link.

To learn how to link to the uploaded PDF via an image, jump to the next section.

1. Open the WordPress post or page in the admin area.
2. Find or type the link text, i.e. “How to upload a PDF to WordPress (and link to it)“.
3. Highlight the text.
4. Click on the icon resembling a paper clip above the block.
5. Put the cursor in the field where WordPress says ‘Paste URL or type to search’.
6. Now ‘Control-P‘ (to paste) or right click and hit PASTE to paste the link.
7. Hit Submit (resembled by a ‘return arrow’ icon) at the end of the field.
8. Click Update to save the page or post.

Image links

1. Open the WordPress post or page in the admin area.
2. Find the image on the page or add the image to the WordPress page.
3. Highlight the image simply by clicking on it.
4. Click on the icon resembling a paper clip in the menu that appears top left of the image.
5. Put the cursor in the field where WordPress says ‘Paste URL or type to search’.
6. Now ‘Control-P‘ (to paste) or right click and hit PASTE to paste the link.
7. Hit Submit (resembled by a ‘return arrow’ icon) at the end of the field.
8. Click Update to save the page or post.

I hope this guide helps you understand how to add a PDF to WordPress and link to it.

Keep in mind that you can link to a PDF on external websites or even a newsletter such as one created in MailChimp.

Just copy that URL (Copy Link above) and use the instructions above to link to it.

PDF file size

PDFs are often quite large in file size because they are printable web documents, so creators tend to put design elements into them. Reduce the PDF file size before uploading it to WordPress to keep a website/blog fast.

Do this in Adobe Acrobat if you have it – open the PDF document, hit the TOOLS tab at the top and scroll down to find ‘Optimize PDF’.

Or use an online PDF compression service like smallpdf.com.

Link to external PDFs in WordPress

Within WordPress, website owners can link to any PDF document on the web.

• Navigate to the PDF in a browser.
• Highlight, then copy the URL within the address bar;
• Now follow the steps above – ‘Link to a PDF’.

Find the URL highlighted in the image below.

Add a PDF as an image thumbnail

A PDF doesn’t display on a website like a GIF, JPEG or PNG.

The easiest way to create an image of the PDF as a thumbnail is to open the PDF and take a screenshot. Trim it using an image editor.

Using Adobe Acrobat use the software to export the page you want as a JPEG. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat, choose File > Export To > Image > JPEG. Save that somewhere on your computer.

Now take that into an image editor and optimise it as necessary. Then you can add the image to the page/post and link it as explained above.

You could also use an icon of a PDF from Font Awesome.

To summarise, uploading a PDF in WordPress

1. Log in to the WordPress admin area.
2. Select Media, then Add New.
3. Click Select Files.
4. Find the file, select it, click Open.
5. The file takes a moment to upload to the Media Library.

To summarise, linking to a PDF in WordPress

1. Open the PDF file from the Media Library.
2. Highlight everything within the field named Copy Link.
3. Control-C to copy.
4. Navigate to your page or post.
5. Highlight the text, image or button.
6. Click the paperclip icon in the menu that appears, top left of the block.
7. Control-P to paste.
8. Click the Submit button – the ‘return arrow’.
9. Hit Update to save the page.