How to Embed and View PDFs

This forum has a built-in PDF viewer (powered by Mozilla's PDF.js) that lets you display PDF documents directly in a post — no downloading required.

Quick Start

Click the PDF button in the post editor toolbar, or use the tags manually.

The Tag Forms

1. Link to any PDF URL

[pdf]https://example.com/somefile.pdf[/pdf]

Embeds a PDF from anywhere on the web.

2. Show one of your own attachments

If you've attached one or more PDFs to your post, you can pick a specific one by its position (0 = first, 1 = second, and so on):

[pdf=attach-00][/pdf]   → your 1st PDF attachment
[pdf=attach-01][/pdf]   → your 2nd PDF attachment

This only ever refers to PDFs on your own post — you can't pull in an attachment from someone else's post.

3. Auto-display every PDF attachment on a post

Instead of tagging each attachment individually, you can turn on auto-display for the whole post:

[pdf=autodisplay][/pdf]

Every .pdf file attached to that post will render automatically. Turn it back off with:

[pdf=noautodisplay][/pdf]

Auto-display is off by default — you need to opt in.

Retired Syntax (do not use)

Some older forum posts reference these forms — they no longer work and should not be copied into new posts:

[pdf db-id=1234][/pdf]
[pdf post-id=1234][/pdf]
[pdf=db-1234][/pdf]
[pdf=post-1234][/pdf]

If you're editing an old post that uses one of these, replace it with the current attach-NN form above.

Tips

• The viewer works whether the PDF is a plain URL or your own forum attachment.
• If nothing renders, double check the attachment is actually a .pdf file — non-PDF attachments are ignored by the tag.
• Multiple PDFs on one post are handled independently — you can mix and match individual attach-NN tags or use autodisplay for all of them at once.