WebEquipe PDF Search vs PDF Embedder

Upload PDF files and embed them directly into your site’s posts and pages. It works as simple as adding images! Your PDF files will be automatically sized to their natural size and shape. You can also specify a width and the correct height will be calculated automatically. Our PDF Embedder plugin is fully responsive, so the embedded PDF will also look perfect, on any device. Additionally, the pdf embedder will automatically resize whenever the browser dimensions change. The plugin has a unique method for embedding PDF files with the immense flexibility over the appearance of your document. The PDF viewer has Next and Previous buttons to navigate the document, and zoom buttons if some areas of a PDF file are too small for your screen. Your PDF files are embedded within your existing WordPress pages so we have full control over appearance, and all Javascript and other files are served by your own server (not by Google or any other third-party who may not be able to guarantee their own reliability). This means your PDF files will load fast, without any speed penalty. Other PDF embedder plugins insert the PDF into an ‘iframe’ which means they do not get the flexibility over sizing. Ours does not and that is an incredible benefit to the overall viewing experience across all devices. In the free plugin, there is no button for users to download the PDF, but download options are available in the Premium versions along with other awesome features. Another Premium feature are Hyperlinks in your PDF being clickable. Links in the free plugin cannot be clicked. Usage Once installed and Activated, click Add Media from any page or post, just like adding an image, but drag and drop a PDF file instead. In the Classic Editor when you insert into your post, it will appear in the editor as a ‘shortcode’ as follows: [pdf-embedder url="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Plan-Summary.pdf"] You can change the default appearance – e.g. width, and toolbar position/appearance through Settings -> PDF Embedder and also shortcode or block attributes. To override your site-wide defaults on an individual embed, see the Plugin Instructions for information about sizing options plus other ways to customize the shortcodes. Premium Features Features available in the PDF Embedder Premium versions: Download button in the toolbar Continuous scroll between pages Hyperlinks are fully functional Full screen mode Edit page number to jump straight to page Track number of downloads and views Mobile-friendly Secure option – difficult to download original PDF Removes wp-pdf.com branding See wp-pdf.com for details! Mobile-friendly embedding using PDF Embedder Premium The free version will work on most mobile browsers, but cannot position the document entirely within the screen. Our PDF Embedder Premium plugin solves this problem with an intelligent ‘full screen’ mode. When the document is smaller than a certain width, the document displays only as a ‘thumbnail’ with a large ‘View in Full Screen’ button for the user to click when they want to study your document. This opens up the document so it has the full focus of the mobile browser, and the user can move about the document without hitting other parts of the web page by mistake. Viewers can then Click Exit to return to the regular page. The user can also swipe continuously between all pages of the PDF which is more natural than clicking the navigation buttons to navigate. See our site wp-pdf.com for more details and purchase options. Protect your PDFs with our premium document embedder version Our PDF Embedder Premium plugin on its Pro plan provides the same simple but elegant viewer as the Basic version, with the added protection that it is difficult for users to download or print the original PDF document. This means that your PDF is unlikely to be shared outside your site where you have no control over who views, prints, or shares it. Optionally, add a watermark containing any text, including the logged in user’s name or email address to discourage sharing of screenshots. See our site wp-pdf.com for more details and purchase options. PDF Thumbnails Our PDF Thumbnails plugin automatically generates fixed image versions of all PDF files in your Media Library, to use on your site as you wish. You can use them as featured images in posts containing an embedded version of the PDF, or as a visual clickable link to download the PDF directly. It also displays the thumbnail as the “icon” for the PDF in the Media Library, making it easy for authors to locate the PDFs they need to insert in a post. See our site wp-pdf.com/thumbnails/ for more details and purchase options. With thanks to the Mozilla team for developing the underlying pdf.js technology used by this PDF documents viewer plugin.

WebEquipe PDF Search indexes your PDF files and makes their text fully searchable. When visitors search your site, they see instant results from both your posts/pages and the content hidden inside your PDFs. Search returns one clean result per PDF with a smart excerpt from the best-matching page. The plugin interface is available in English, French, German, Dutch, and Swedish, loading automatically to match your WordPress language. Looking for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for scanned documents? While the free version indexes standard text-based PDFs, WebEquipe PDF Search Pro brings advanced Cloud OCR capabilities directly to WordPress, allowing you to index and search scanned image PDFs, historical archives, and photo-only documents seamlessly. Video Watch our feature overview to see standard indexing and Pro Cloud OCR capabilities in action: Supported PDFs & OCR Compatibility Standard Text PDFs: Works flawlessly out of the box with digital PDFs exported from Word, Google Docs, InDesign, etc. File size default 50MB, configurable up to 500MB in PDF Search → Settings. Mixed Layout PDFs: If some pages contain extractable text and others are image-only, indexing succeeds with an admin warning; core search covers the native text pages. Scanned or Image PDFs: Image-only or scanned PDFs with no embedded text are marked Error in the free version. To make these searchable, WebEquipe PDF Search Pro uses automated OCR to extract and index the text for you. Protected Files: Password-protected PDFs cannot be indexed. Keep Private PDFs Out of Search Need to hide or protect certain PDFs? The free version lets you use Exclude so a PDF is never indexed and never appears in search—even when you run “Re-index All PDFs” or bulk index. Excluded PDFs stay in your Media Library; they just won’t be searchable. Use Include later to allow indexing again. You can exclude or include PDFs from the Media Library or from PDF Search → Manage PDFs. Looking for Restricted or Member-Only Search? (Pro Feature) If you want to keep documents indexed but restrict who can see them, WebEquipe PDF Search Pro includes a Private PDF Search feature. This allows you to index files and mark them as Private so that only logged-in users can find them in search results. Logged-out or public visitors will never see them, making it perfect for member directories, internal company handbooks, and premium resources. How to Use Install and activate the plugin. Open PDF Search in the WordPress admin sidebar (Dashboard is the home screen). Click Re-index All PDFs on the Dashboard or PDF Search → Index Activity to index existing PDFs (new uploads are indexed automatically when Enable PDF Indexing is on). Use your site’s search or add the shortcode [webequipe_pdf_search_form] on a page—PDFs will appear in results when Enable Search Integration is enabled. Use PDF Search → Manage PDFs to scan the library, filter by status, and run bulk actions. Use PDF Search → Index Activity to review indexing runs, export a CSV log, or start another full re-index. Settings at a Glance All options are under PDF Search → Settings: General – Enable PDF indexing on upload, include PDFs in WordPress search, maximum file size (50MB default), search result excerpt length. Indexing options – Batch size (PDFs per re-index step), pages per batch (background page steps), page index threshold (when large PDFs switch to page-by-page indexing), max page content length (0 = unlimited; re-index after changing). Search display options – Show or hide PDF icon, file size, page count, last updated date, author, thumbnail preview, and summary/snippet text in search results. Advanced – Debug logging, memory limit, processing timeout, background processing, delete data on uninstall. Full details and shortcode options: PDF Search → Help. What You Can Do Dashboard – Indexed PDF count, pages indexed, coverage, search health, recent activity, quick links, and Re-index All PDFs (status banner uses live index data). Manage PDFs – Scan the library, filter by status (including Processing / Scheduled), cancel in-flight jobs, bulk actions, and accurate Re-index All progress with a do-not-refresh notice. Full-text search – Search inside PDF content by page; one result per PDF with the best-matching excerpt. Control each PDF – Index, unindex, exclude, or retry from the Media Library, Manage PDFs, or the attachment screen. Bulk actions – Index, unindex, include, or exclude multiple PDFs at once (Media Library or Manage PDFs). Index Activity – Filterable log of every indexing run, stats, and CSV export. Search display – Configure icons, meta, previews, and excerpts in settings. Shortcode – Add a PDF-only search form with [webequipe_pdf_search_form] (see PDF Search → Help). Background processing – Large PDFs above the page threshold are indexed page-by-page in the background to avoid timeouts. Multilingual interface – Admin and front-end text is translated into French, German, Dutch, and Swedish, loaded automatically based on your WordPress language setting. Pro Version — OCR, Private Search & Analytics The free plugin indexes standard text-based PDFs. WebEquipe PDF Search Pro is optional (sold separately) and extends the free plugin with three features document-heavy sites often need: OCR for Scanned PDFs (Starter, Pro & Agency) Scanned PDFs, archived documents, and image-based files are invisible to the free plugin. Pro uses Google Vision OCR to read and index them automatically on upload—no pre-processing, no extra tools. Government records, old meeting minutes, scanned handbooks: all searchable. Private PDF Search (Pro & Agency) Mark any PDF as Private. It remains fully indexed but disappears from search results for logged-out visitors. Perfect for member-only handbooks, restricted resources, and confidential documents—without removing them from your Media Library. Analytics Dashboard (Pro & Agency) See exactly what visitors search for and—more importantly—what they search for and don’t find. Zero-result queries are your content gap list. Top queries, most-clicked PDFs, and click-through rates, all in one admin screen. Plans & Feature Comparison Choose the tier that fits your workflow. Every premium plan includes automatic background indexing, priority updates, and expert support: Free Plan: Full-text search for standard PDFs, auto-indexing, and shortcode integration. (Forever Free) Starter Plan: Adds Cloud OCR (up to 1,000 pages/month) and advanced search filtering. Pro Plan: Adds Private PDF Search, the full Search Analytics Dashboard, and higher OCR limits (3,000 pages/month). Agency Plan: Includes everything, White-Label mode, volume OCR processing (10,000 pages/month), and unlimited site licenses. View current pricing tiers and upgrade to Pro now -> Troubleshooting PDFs not appearing in search Ensure PDFs are indexed (Media Library → “Search Indexed” column), Enable Search Integration is on, and the PDF is not excluded. Check PDF Search → Manage PDFs for Error status and use Index Activity to see why a run failed. Indexing fails or times out In PDF Search → Settings: enable Background Processing, review Pages Per Batch and Page Index Threshold for large files, and lower Batch Size if Re-index All PDFs stops early. Under Advanced, adjust Processing Timeout and ensure PHP memory_limit and max_execution_time are sufficient (see Help). Very large PDFs are processed in multiple page batches automatically when over the threshold. Scanned PDFs marked as Error The free plugin cannot extract text from image-based or scanned PDFs natively—this is normal behavior. To automatically index scanned layout files, upgrade to WebEquipe PDF Search Pro (Starter plan and above) to utilize cloud-based Optical Character Recognition (OCR). See Pro plans → Legacy index after upgrade If you see a notice about migrating to per-page indexing, run Re-index All PDFs from the Dashboard or Index Activity page. Other issues See the FAQ above and PDF Search → Help for full documentation. Privacy The plugin stores extracted PDF text and metadata in custom database tables (webequipe_pdf_search_files, webequipe_pdf_search_pages, and webequipe_pdf_search_activity, with a legacy webequipe_pdf_search_index table until you re-index). A compressed backup may also be stored in WordPress post meta for PDF attachments. If debug logging is enabled, recent log entries are stored in a WordPress option (not written directly to disk). The plugin does not collect or send visitor search data to external services. If your PDFs contain personal or sensitive information, that content is in the index—mention this in your privacy policy if required. Third-Party Libraries smalot/pdfparser (LGPL-3.0) – PDF text extraction symfony/polyfill-mbstring (MIT) – multibyte string support Credits Developed by WebEquipe. Uses smalot/pdfparser for PDF text extraction. Support Support: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/webequipe-pdf-search Pro plans and pricing: https://webequipe.com/pdf-search/