Joomla Tutorials

Managing PDFs and Other Documents with Joomla

April 16, 2010 | Written by Steve Burge

When we get two people inside a few minutes in our support forum asking how to do the same thing, it's time for a tutorial ...

Both of our students were asking how they can upload documents and link to them from articles. We have already recommended one way to handle documents for people using the JCE Editor.

This week we're going to recommend an extension called "Attachment for Content Articles".

Installing Attachments For Content Articles

  1. Go to Joomlacode.org and download the file called attachments-1.3.4.zip
  2. Extract the files on your desktop. There should be several extensions and documents inside.
  3. Go to Extensions >> Install / Uninstall and install all four extensions from the folder.
  4. Go to Extensions >> Plugin Manager and enable the three Attachment plugins. If you have trouble finding them all, you enter "attachment" into the filter field:

    Attachments

Configuring Attachments For Content Articles

Go to Components >> Article Attachments and you'll see "Parameters" in the top-right corner. Click that button and you'll be able to configure your document options.

For this tutorial, I'd recommend setting "Attachments published by default?" to "Yes". That means you won't have to take the extra step of publishing.

Here you can also decide whether people need to be logged in to download attachments. Again, for easy testing I'd recommend setting "Who can see attachments?" to "Anyone".

Attachments

Uploading Attachments

Click "New" in the top-right corner. You'll see a screen like the one below:

Attachments

  1. Click "Select article" and choose which article you'd like this image to appear in.
  2. Click "Browse" and select your file.
  3. Enter the name people will see when they download the file into "Display Filename".
  4. Enter information about the file into "Description".

Click "Save" and when you visit the front of your article you should see the attachment showing like this:

Attachments to Articles

You'll also be now see a button at the bottom of every article allowing you to upload and and attach documents directly from the article page.


 

 


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Comments 

 
# Bobbi Shockley 2010-09-03 23:34
Thank you! After two days of looking for a way to embed a fillable loan application PDF form into a Joomla! site I was giving up. Just not enough time before launch to learn to use a form generator.
Then I stumbled onto this article. Eureka! Well, not what I wanted, but the next best.
You made this oh so easy. Thanks again!
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# cristina 2011-02-03 07:31
Just installed the plugin. In Components, doesn't appear attachments, and now when I try to write a new article, this eror appears:

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required '/home/paisfili/public_html/components/com_attachments /helper.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/php52/pear') in /home/paisfili/public_html/plugins/editors-xtd/add_attachment.php on line 106



HHHEEELLLPPPP!! !!
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# steve 2011-02-03 07:56
Hi Cristina

Go to Extensions then Plugin Manager and disable the Attachments plugin (its of the Editor XTD type)
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# kiki 2011-10-21 13:22
Hello Steve,

I only see attachement 2.2 and 3.0.2 available and do I extract it to a folder then install it?

I have only installed plugins while they are still zipped file.

Thank you
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# iowawebco 2011-10-21 23:55
Hi Kiki,

Within the zip file that you download there will be several installable files. So when you download the main zip file, you can unzip (extract) it and then install the files that are within as you would any other plugins.

Kind regards,
Nick
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