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Sunday, July 3, 2011

Embedding PDF files in Moodle – a concise tutorial by @LBCCeLearning

Note: Click here for a more recent, year 2015 post that works on Moodle 2.x.

Hi there!
LBCC eLearning Blog is the “the place to see the latest ideas for online education at Linn-Benton Community College” (follow them @LBCCeLearning).

In a March 2010 post, Eric Bryant explained how to embed a Portable Document Format (PDF) file inside a Moodle course. An embedded PDF file will, in my humble opinion, engage a student more than if he or she were to just see the PDF icon and description on your course page.  Which is how it would appear if you use the standard method of “Add a resource | Link to a file or website”.

If you want a truly embedded PDF, then Eric’s tutorial is for you [link]. The blog post is short, informative and concise. Sample html embed code is provided, and there are screenshots that show the effect of using different settings for each EMBED variable. Thanks, Eric!

There are other ways of embedding PDF files on the Net, but I found that this method (outlined here) works for me. Armed with this knowledge, I proceeded to create a book resource (Moodle 1.9) where each link was a embedded PDF file. It’s a very nice layout (see below for a screen shot of an embedded PDF using embedding!




Sample code to embed PDF content inside your Moodle page is:

<center><embed width="800" height="600" src="http://scm.moodleace.com/file.php/7/download/SM1007_SEPT_2011_Coursework_Assignment.pdf#toolbar=1&navpanes=1&scrollbar=1" quality="low" /></center>

I would love to hear from you If you have found this information useful, and have decided to use PDF embed code in your courses.  If you use a different method or have a favorite Web 2.0 technology to engage students with PDF content within Moodle, please share your experience.

Note: this article was originally posted by the author on Moodlenews.com on 25th March 2011.

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