Select to view content in your preferred language

Embedded .pdfs not displaying even with pdf browser extension installed

232
1
01-16-2025 12:54 PM
SaraFrankenfeld
Regular Contributor

I have a dashboard with embedded .pdfs (hosted outside of ArcGIS Online) and I cannot get them to display in any browser, even with the Adobe .pdf extension installed. In Chrome and Edge I continue to get the "Chrome blocked this file" or "Edge blocked this file" messages.  In Firefox (from my understanding, no extension needed), the frame is just blank. I've also tried using the suggestion to embed the google docs viewer in the file url and that works extremely intermittently/slowly, or not at all.

I can get them to display with this extension only:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/pdf-viewer/oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm

But the intent of this dashboard is to be public facing and I'm  nervous about asking people to install that extension (I would be ok with asking them to install the official Adobe extension). I'm also curious why that extension works and the official Adobe one doesn't.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about this? 

 

0 Kudos
1 Reply
SarahSinghNZ
Occasional Contributor

Hello, It is a known limitation that some browsers block embedded PDFs in a dashboard due to security reasons (stored cross-site scripting). More information about this is available in the sources below.

Workarounds include converting the PDF to an image and using the image widget or to direct users to the external site to access the original PDF.

Source: https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/cannot-view-a-pdf-embedded-in-an-arcgis-dashboard-0000...

Source: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-online-questions/unable-to-open-pdf-in-agol-only-download-new-a... 

0 Kudos