When you start using Notion, it’s hard not to stick with it and get all your documents on it. That’s because it acts as a spectacular repository of your documents. It doesn’t matter if you use Notion to create a website or use it as a CRM, you need to get your documents there.
And when we talk about documents, it's hard not to talk about PDFs. In the current times, PDFs have become the go-to file format for all official documentation purposes. If you use Notion for business, you will find it easy to share PDFs with select audiences.
For example, Invoices and purchase orders can be shared only with the accounts team. And organization-wide documents like annual holiday calendar, tax forms can be made accessible to every employee through a common Notion dashboard.
Irrespective of what you use it for, you would want to insert PDFs in Notion.
Here are the 4 steps to add PDFs to Notion:
1. Add a PDF block
The embed and PDFs blocks, both serve the purpose of embedding PDFs into Notion. We will cover the process of using the embed block but the same process and screenshots apply to the PDF block as well.
To get started, go to the Notion page where you want to upload the PDF and type “/embed”.
This will pull up a view where you can see the embed block, clicking on it will create a new block on the page.
Here is what the empty block looks like.
2. Add your PDF file
There are two ways forward. You can either upload a PDF from your device or add a link to source the PDF from. If you want to share a link, you must ensure that it is public and Notion can access it.
Here is what the selection pane looks like.
3. Resize the Notion PDF preview
After you have selected the PDF to embed, click on “Embed Link” or “Upload” to show your PDF in your Notion page.
Notion will show a preview as displayed in the below image.
Next, you can expand or compress your PDF to adjust the size. You can treat it just like other Notion blocks — you can move it around or delete it when you want.
4. Control Access
As discussed earlier, not all PDFs need to be accessible to all your team members. Some documents are meant for specific teams and must be kept private from others.
To share with a specific audience, or even to make your Notion page public, you can click on the “...” icon at the top-right corner of your screen and add people you want to share access with.
What is the best way to upload a PDF to Notion?
The best way to embed PDF in Notion is by simply pasting a PDF URL and commanding Notion to embed it. The below image shows an example. On pasting the URL, Notion shows an option of embedding it.
This method, however, won’t work if you plan to upload your PDF from your device.
In this article, we covered the steps to embedding a PDF in Notion and sharing it with others in your team. You can embed many other file types in Notion using the same method.
Here’s why you are unable to embed your PDF in Notion
Embedding PDFs in Notion may not work if the PDF URL is not publicly accessible. Try opening the URL in another browser. If you get a 404 error, you can be sure that either the link is incorrect or it’s private. If the URL is correct, all you need to do is edit the privacy settings of the PDF before uploading it to Notion.
