Skip to Main Content

LibGuides Manual

Working With PDFs

Incorporating PDFs into your guide can make valuable information available to researchers. You can include linked PDFs in Rich Text boxes, in Link items, or even in Books from the Catalog. You can also link to either internal PDFs (created by and housed at the Library), or to external PDFs. In the case of external PDFs, you will need to include the External Link coding.

You must link to PDFs -- DO NOT upload PDFs into Springshare. In order to link to files, they must reside somewhere on a Library server and have an associated URL. Check with your webmaster if you need to upload a PDF onto the Library's public web server.

Any time you link to a PDF, you will need to include an indication that it is a PDF along with the file size. This is longstanding Library policy for the website, which we follow. In addition to the above example, there is an example of marking a PDF using the Book for the Catalog function in the American Folklife Center's Boats and Boatbuilding: Resources in the American Folklife Center guide.

Making PDFs Accessible

Documents posted to the Library’s web properties (including LibGuides) must be accessible for the Library to meet its obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are some (very old) instructions on making PDFs accessible on the Library's Web Production Portal:

There are also instructions about metadata for PDFs available in this section of the portal: