StoryMap Embed change and change panel size

[BeccaBoyd]

I have 2 issues I am trying to work through in updating a Storymap I've had for a few years:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/dbc12a072350499192e0d933397659cd

1) Embed for PDF is no longer giving the option to be interactive. I can even copy and paste the same PDF I already have in the storymap that is working but into a new embed and it won't work. I didn't do anything special last time for the PDFs that are working, there was no iframe, etc. Just simply copy and pasted the URL and they worked. Was there an update or change that is now preventing PDFs from being interactive?

2) In the slides for a Sidecar I'd like to be able to change the size of the panels individually without altering the size for entire storymap. Is this possible? For example, I want to make the map on the right bigger, but when I do this it resizes every single slide to match. 

Appreciate any help, thanks

[OwenGeo]

Hi @BeccaBoyd - Thanks for posting your questions:

1) PDFs hosted on the web must have the correct security headers in order to be embedded in a StoryMap. You can find the details of what is required here: Frequently asked questions | ArcGIS StoryMaps Help. If you need a quick solution you can upload the PDF as an item in your ArcGIS content, share it publicly, copy the URL from the right sidebar on the item page, and use that to embed the PDF in your story.

2) As you navigate through a sidecar, the content for each slide scrolls into the same area as the previous slide, so you aren't able change the size or position of individual slides. If you want a different panel size for consecutive slides, you can try breaking the sidecar up into multiple, consecutive sidecar blocks, each with a different panel size. The easiest way to do this is to duplicate the sidecar and then remove the slides you don't need in each one.

[BeccaBoyd]

Thanks so much on #2

For #1, the PDFs meet the requirements and even ones that are live and working right now can't be duplicated/replicated. 

[OwenGeo]

@BeccaBoyd - I took a look at the story link you provided and found some PDF links for testing.

The Google Drive PDF viewer (this is what you see when you open the PDF in a new browser tab) does not allow embedding, but you can modify the URL to allow embedding.  Also the .gov URL does also not allow embedding (I tested this by trying to use that URL to embed the PDF in a separate test page and it did not work). Perhaps there is a Google Drive URL for those documents that can also be used? See the URLs below.

I hope this info will help you find the URLs you'll need to embed the PDFs.

Does not allow embedding:
spokanecounty.gov/DocumentCenter/View/65266/Spokane-County-HMP-Vol1?bidId=

Does not allow embedding (standard Google Drive PDF viewer URL):
https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://www.spokanecounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/34414...

Does allow embedding (modified GD PDF viewer URL): ✅
https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https%3A//www.spokanecounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/344...

[BeccaBoyd]

I've tried inserting the 3rd link above: 

https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https%3A//www.spokanecounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/344...

But that doesn't work. I'm going to send some screenshots of this (1st photo) and also my working live embed with a simple/typical URL that's been there for years (2nd and 3rd photos). So I'm confused as to why it used to have no problem with the URL type, and is still working, and I've tried a number of different PDFs with no luck on getting the "live" aspect to work. 

[OwenGeo]

@BeccaBoyd - I'm sorry that this is giving you trouble. Unfortunately, there are technical/security requirements that can be confusing or frustrating when trying to embed web content in other websites.

That existing PDF is shown in the story because it is being loaded using the Google Drive PDF viewer URL; it is not being directly embedded from the .org website. The URL reported in Embed options > Properties is not the full URL that is being used to view the content. It is the URL of the original PDF file extracted from the Google Drive URL parameter.

Although I can't tell for sure, it appears that the Google Drive URL is what was used to originally add this to the story. Please note that embedding the PDF using the Google URL that I mentioned above does still work. It sometimes takes a very long time (I've seen 30+ seconds) for the PDF to initially appear in the story, but we have verified that it does work. I am not familiar with this viewer, so can't comment on how it works, why it might be slow, or whether permission/licensing is required to use it.

I believe the fact that one of the PDFs is working like you expect has led you to believe that the PDFs on the .org site meets the security requirements, but they do not. The .org website does not have the proper security headers to enable it to be directly embedded. 

Here is the pertinent part of the FAQ I mentioned above that describes the security requirements:

And here is the header from one of the PDFs on the .org website showing "frame-ancestors" that does not include *.arcgis.com or some variation of it. The web admin would need to make changes on the website to modify the CSP (content security policy) to allow the PDF files to be directly embedded on other any other website or explicitly allow embedding on the ArcGIS Online domain (storymaps.arcgis.com, or *.arcgis.com).

{
    "headers": {
        "accept-ranges": "bytes",
        "cache-control": "public, max-age=30",
        "cf-cache-status": "EXPIRED",
        "cf-ray": "9d7332b1b8df2952-IAD",
        "connection": "close",
        "content-disposition": "inline;filename=SpokaneCountyHMPVol1_State_FEMA_Review_02052026.pdf",
        "content-length": "20335088",
        "content-security-policy": "frame-ancestors 'self' https://*.granicus.com https://platform.civicplus.com https://account.civicplus.com https://analytics.civicplus.com; img-src * data: blob:; worker-src * data: blob: 'unsafe-eval' 'unsafe-inline'; script-src * about: 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval'; style-src * 'unsafe-inline'; media-src * blob:; font-src * data:; default-src *",
        "content-type": "application/pdf",
        "date": "Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:13:24 GMT",
        "expires": "Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:13:54 GMT",
        "last-modified": "Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:13:24 GMT",
        "p3p": "CP=\"IDC DSP COR ADM DEVi TAIi PSA PSD IVAi IVDi CONi HIS OUR IND CNT\"",
        "server": "cloudflare",
        "vary": "Accept-Encoding",
        "x-content-type-options": "nosniff"
    },
    "url": "https://www.spokanecounty.gov/DocumentCenter/View/65266/Spokane-County-HMP-Vol1",
    "success": true
}

I hope this information is helpful. Please let us know if you have more questions.