Learn how to quickly help yourself when dealing with some issues.

Documentation Category: Troubleshooting

  • After PDF loads, the page is cut off vertically or cannot scroll

    Some Themes have Javascript code that automatically adds scrollbars or positions other features depending on the exact height of every item on the page. However, because PDF Embedder changes height after the PDF is fully loaded, the Theme really needs to recalculate everything after the PDF loads. But unfortunately some Themes fail to account for…

  • Download button opens PDF in a new tab

    You may find that when you click on the ‘download’ button within the PDF viewer, the PDF opens in a new tab instead of downloading. This behavior normally happens in Chrome, and you might consider it annoying – when you download a file you want it to be downloaded to your hard drive, and then…

  • Keyboard Shortcuts for full screen mode

    In full screen mode (Premium versions only), the following keyboard shortcuts can be used: Page Up / Down (Cmd + Up / Down on a Mac) – move to next/prev page Arrow keys – pan around the current page of the PDF Escape – exit full screen mode

  • I see the ‘View in Full Screen’ overlay when I don’t want it

    Hiding the Overlay You see the ‘View in Full Screen’ message when the PDF is embedded in too narrow a column. This is designed so that on mobile devices, the user always has to open in full screen rather than trying to grapple with the inline PDF viewer which is difficult to use in a…

  • My Theme’s menu bar or header obscures the full screen view of the PDF

    To ensure the menu is behind the viewer when in full screen, you could try adding the following CSS to your theme’s style.css or similar: .pdfemb-fsp-wrapper { z-index: 999999 !important; } You might need to increase the number to something even higher to ensure it takes priority over the ‘z-index’ of your Theme’s header.

  • Unexpected server response (204)

    If you see this error message, do you have a download manager installed on your browser? This sometimes causes problems – maybe take a look at your extensions, and also try on a different browser to see if that works. If it does, it seems likely to be limited to your original browser. Disabling the…

  • Hyperlinks aren’t working

    Hyperlinks in your PDFs are only supported in the Premium and Secure versions of the plugin, so please make sure you are definitely using one of those versions. If your links are all displayed as URLs e.g. http://mysite.com/… in the PDF text, then the most likely explanation is that the links in your document aren’t…

  • Invalid PDF Structure

    If you see ‘Invalid PDF Structure’ where you expected the PDF to display, this may be due to server configuration problems. Either the encrypted file isn’t being streamed correctly to the browser (maybe due to gzip being applied incorrectly), or the decryption key in the browser is stale. Reload the page to check it’s not…

  • PDF is not in secure mode, or ‘disable right click’ is not working

    This only applies if you are using the Secure version of PDF Embedder. If you have the ‘disable right click’ option selected, but this doesn’t seem to be effective, then most likely your PDF isn’t uploaded in secure mode. Please see the instructions on how to turn on secure mode and upload the PDF again.…

  • Secure PDFs are slow to load

    The problem is the size of the file (in MB), unfortunately it just takes longer to process and transmit larger file sizes. Non-secure version of the file loads more quickly because there isn’t an encryption overhead and it is possible to transmit in chunks since it does not need to be encrypted. The possible solutions…

  • In the Premium version there is nowhere to enter the license key

    In you admin area, on the Settings > PDF Embedder page should be a “License” tab, and there you can enter the license key you received in your purchase email. If there is no “License” tab, then you are almost certainly have only the free version activated. On the Plugins page, please activate the Premium…

  • PDF doesn’t appear at all – just a link or hangs on ‘Loading…’

    If the PDF doesn’t display at all then please get in touch with our support team via email. Send a link to the page containing the ‘broken’ embedded PDF. First, you may be able to diagnose the problem yourself – or at least find out some more information that could help the support team. Most…