Joomla 2.5 Tutorials – This is a simple Joomla tutorial on how to upload a PDF file and add link to a PDF file in your Joomla articles.  There are a few steps involved and includes grabbing a link to an PDF image file found on the adobe website and uploading and linking that image file to a real PDF contents file.   You can reuse the image file to link to many PDF files, not just one.

Screenshot of a PDF File In my Joomla Article:

Overview of Steps:

• Create New PDFs Directory in Media Manager
• Upload PDF File to PDFs Directory in Media Manager
• Write down / copy PDF file path
• Edit Article to Display PDF File
• Add a Link to PDF file icon in Joomla Article
• Link to PDF file

Steps:

1.   Create New PDFs Directory in Media Manager

To make life easier for you, I would suggest uploading all your PDFs to the Media Manager images folder.  That way these files can be accessible and you can upload files whenever you want.  You don’t need to use FTP manager to find and upload files.  But I would create a separate directory for them so your PDF’s don’t get lost in with all your image files.

• Login to your Joomla 2.5 Administrator backend
• Click on ‘Content’, ‘Media Manager’
• Under the Files option, enter PDFs in the text box
• Click on ‘Create Folder’

2.  Upload PDF File to PDFs Directory in Media Manager

Now upload all your PDF’s into the new Directory you created under the images folder.   So your path to your PDFs folder is:  /images/PDFs

• Click on the new ‘PDFs’ folder to change directory into the new PDFs directory
• Click on ‘Choose File’ and select the .PDF file you want to upload
• Click on ‘Start Upload’

3.  Write Down / Copy PDF file Path

You finished uploading the file, but copy the file path and name because you will use this later when linking to it in an article.  Remember to add an /images/ in front of your PDF file path.

4.  Edit Article to Display PDF File

Now you can go to your article that you want to insert the PDF file into.

• Click on ‘Content’, ‘Article Manager’
• Click on the Article you want to insert a PDF file into

5.  Insert/Link to a PDF file icon in Joomla Article

You can either insert a link to LINK to an existing PDF icon.  I chose the latter and visited adobe’s website to grab a PDF icon at adobe.com.  I found an icon there I liked.

Link to to the

• Adobe site is:  http://www.adobe.com/misc/linking.html
• Adobe PDF Icon image URL is:  http://www.adobe.com/images/pdficon_large.png

• Click on the ‘Insert/Edit Image’ icon

• Under Insert/Edit Image tab, enter the following information:
  • Image URL = http://www.adobe.com/images/pdficon_large.png
  • Image Description = PDF Icon
• Click on ‘Insert’

6.  Link to PDF file

Now link the PDF image to your PDF file.

• Click on the PDF file icon that you just inserted above
• Click on the ‘Insert/Edit Link‘ icon

• Under the Insert/Edit Link details, enter the following information:
  • Link URL = /images/PDFs/Elaine cmsmind.pdf  <— grabbed from step 3
  • Target = Open Link in a New Window
  • Title = Elaine CmsMind.com PDF File
• Click on ‘Update‘

You are done.  Now you can refresh your Joomla 2.5 website and view your article that you added a PDF file link to.  You will see a PDF file icon and when you click the icon it will open the PDF file for viewing.

Thanks,

Elaine