Unable to Open PDF in AGOL only Download- New as of Feb 29, 2024

[CaseyWilson1]

At the City of Springfield, we share authoritative pdf maps, like regulatory zoning, with the pubic via our ArcGIS online Hub.  Previous to today, February 29, 2024, the pdf behavior when in AGOL and the Hub, is that you have the choice to Open and then download a pdf document.  Today, the pdf we uploaded can only be downloaded from the Hub and when in AGOL.

We would like people to be able to view the pdf and not have to download the pdf.  Did something change with the February 2024 AGOL update?  Is there a setting I need to consider? 

[JoseBarrios1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Randall,

I want to confirm my understanding of how this change will impact Experience Builder and the use of the Embed widget to access PDF documents. Are we no longer able to embed a PDF hosted in ArcGIS Online and have it open directly within Experience Builder?.

If this is the case, could someone please update the help esri  help documentation at this link?

Thanks

JB

[MichaelRobb]

Thanks for the explanation. To address this, thoughts about allowing admins to configure an option to enable this feature? When Enterprise is behind a firewall in a corporate setting, the risks you mentioned are not applicable. Instead, users are frustrated because their machines are cluttered with downloaded PDFs, requiring additional clicks to access them.

[CaseyWilson1]

Thanks @RebeccaRichman for passing this along to the developers. 

[Amanda__Huber]

Adding our voice to this. This is a very frustrating change that broke a large portion of our public maps workflow. It was not communicated to us, the customers and came by surprise after this last AGOL update. From this thread it sounds like others are just as surprised. 

Please re-consider finding a solution that's safe to host. In the meantime we will be scrambling to resolve our broken maps that are consumed daily by the public. 

Best, 

Amanda Huber

Three Rivers Park District

[davepete22]

This is a very unwelcome change.  A heads up would have been greatly appreciated, changes entire workflows as others have mentioned.  

[davepete22]

For my situation, I did find a workaround.  I was using PDF's linked to in Survey123 and instead of saving my Word doc as a PDF, I saved it as a JPEG instead and that is able to be viewed in browser instead of downloaded.  Hope this is an option for some of you.  

[Amanda__Huber]

This is a great workaround for quickly viewing graphics, but unfortunately screen readers cannot read images like PDFs. So any text on your map is lost for those with accessibility needs. 

Alternate text would fill that gap but not be comprehensive as it can't capture everything that's in the map. 

Just something to think about!

[HectorValleRuiz]

I agree with most of the comments. Even though some of the previously mentioned workarounds might help with specific situations, the change is unexpected and a major issue for many consolidated workflows. Let's hope that the alternative PDF Viewers allow to implement a solution soon enough

[WhitneyPatterson]

We're dealing with the same issue as a government organization.  We use Box for file retention and I tested hosting a PDF in a public-facing Box folder and using that URL in the embed widget for Experience Builder.  However, now I'm running into inconsistencies across internet browsers as to what will be displayed in the embed widget when using that externally hosted URL.  Chrome will sometimes initially display the embedded PDF, but then will break and display an error (yes, I have the PDF reader extension installed).  Firefox and Edge works and I haven't even begun to test mobile browsers.  I'm having similar issues hosting in SharePoint.

In order to be transparent with the public, we have historically relied on the embed widget to display multi-page data and process documentation.  Having to configure this documentation in other EXB widgets and formatting for different screen resolutions would be an incredibly time consuming and impractical endeavor as the app currently exists.  This change unfortunately renders the embed widget useless for our uses.  It would be nice to have options and a road map for this versus taking away a functionality and leaving it to users to first of all discover the issue, and then spend countless hours trying to find a work around.