Forum Discussion
Error embedding PDFs in Rise
Good morning!
I wanted to adress a small problem with embedding PDFs from web hosting. Sometimes when loading the courses (like one out of 5) we don't get the view of the embedded content. There is no error code, big red cross, 404, nor anything: it just doesn't show. The frame remains blank. We used several ways to store the archive, from Google Drive to Calameo, even the "articulate user content" link you get when downloading the PDF after uploading it into a course.
The problem gets worse when there are several documents in a row because the chance of at least one of them failing gets even higher.
Is there anything we could do?
Thank you very much!
Hi Hazel. I have also been able to embed it just fine using those steps. I understand those instructions just fine. Similar to the other people posting in this thread, it typically shows up just fine at that stage. Upon later visits, it sometimes disappears (just shows and empty white block) intermittently. And the intermittent behavior is consistent (consistently intermittent, ha!) across edit, preview, published for web, published for LMS and hosted in Canvas. Sometimes it works, other times it's just a white screen. You may or may not be able to replicate the behavior at any given time.
has this issue bee resolved. I seem to be experiencing the same issue. Added a lesson where I inserted my PDFs as attachments. I copied the link from each attachment and inserted it into an embedded block within it's corresponding lesson. Sometimes it works and other times just a blank box. Please help!
Hi Jessica,
PDFs uploaded to Rise should work every time. Do you have any problems with the PDFs in an attachment block?
What I don't understand, is why you are then copying the links to these PDFs and inserting them into other embedded blocks?
Hi Karl! To answer your question, the method Jessica shared is a way to show the PDF inline in the embed block in Rise so you don't need to download or open a new window to see the PDF.
1 - Uploading it as an attachment and clicking this opens the PDF in a URL.
2 - Copying this URL and inserting it in an Embed Block display it inline
Jessica, if you're having trouble seeing the PDF, it most likely hasn't loaded in yet. You may need to refresh or clear your cache so that the PDF loads in properly.
I've seen this happen with wider PDF files or PDF files that are in landscape mode.Can you try clearing your browsing data? Here's how to do it for your browser:
Let me know if that doesn't help!
Experiencing the same issue here. Tried embedding from several different sites, but still unreliable. I also embed a lot of videos, and those never fail, only embedded PDF's experience this problem. It seems this has been an issue for at least 3 years according to this thread. Hasn't there been anything done to resolve this?
Hi there Frisk Spesialist! Would it be okay for you to share the links for the pdf files that you're trying to embed? We'd like to test it from our side. If they are private, you can open a case here and share them with us directly.
Sure, I can share an example. In this example I use the link from an download-block in Rise, I have others from a company FTP-site, but I experience no difference in how reliable they show up on either. It doesnt seem to be connected to the source URL. Heres the link: https://articulateusercontent.com/rise/courses/a2Bh1h90n2ISqFyhCMsX5780M4hi5j_v/iiI8YaXuQC1fPtKF-frisk_oppskriftshefte-min_0.pdf
I have found a solution on my own. If you add <iframe src="file-url"</iframe> to the link it shows the PDF consistently
Hi Frisk Specialist! I am glad that you were able to find a solution!
2 years ago - I'm guessing this is another issue that's been added to a feature roadmap and forgotten. Disappointing.
We successfully link to PDFs on external web sites, or upload them to a Attachment block in Rise.
What are you trying to do with PDFs that is not working?
As the thread mentions, I'm trying to embed a PDF. I've tried multiple ways - embed from a website and from an articulate rise block. It does work but it is very sporadic, much like what the other users in this thread say really.
That's odd. We use PDF's a lot in our Rise courses, and they function correctly and consistently.
The attachment blocks work perfectly and as expected, however embedding PDFs (especially multiple documents) sometimes shows and sometimes just shows a blank box and you need to refresh the page to make it appear (and even then that sometimes doesn't work).
The last post by Frisk says he found his own solution which I have tried to follow but without success. I very rarely post to be honest but my frustrations on similar threads without solutions just got the better of me today. Let's put it down to ...'it's a Monday'
I can report the same issue as described above. Sporadic loading of the embedded PDFs which renderes this as useless in our use case. No matter where the PDF is loaded.
Inspecting the iframe element shows that there is some weird part injected in front of the actual PDF link. Why there's the Google Drive viewer involved? Is this a local browser preference? Also some characters are converted to HTML entities. If I take such link, get rid of the GD viewer part, clean the HTML entities, PDF is loaded in browser just fine (not within Rise).
Mangled URL and viewer thingy looks to me like possible culprit.<iframe class="embed__media" src="https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https%3A//www.HERE_GOES_THE_FULL_PATH_TO_PDF_FILE.pdf&embedded=true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Hmmm ... after more toying with just the suspected URL it seems it works on it's own. So the problem is most likely elsewhere.
Maybe some timing issue during the loading of embedded content ...?Hello Jakub,
Can I ask if you were able to test the issue on other hosting platforms such as Amazon S3? I did a quick test by uploading a sample PDF to my Amazon S3 account and there were no issues accessing the embedded PDF. Here's a quick link to my test. The issue appears to be specific to files uploaded and hosted in Google Drive.
