The Brightspace Content area is perfect for providing students with content but it can also be a perfectly boring list of links and text. Besides using images and videos to break up the text, you can also use this special method to embed a PDF preview right in the content area. You can see what it looks like in the screenshot below.
This is a more advanced Brightspace tip but the steps are outlined below with screenshots to walk you through it.
A note about accessibility
The ReadSpeaker text-to-speech tool called DocReader will not work on the PDFs embedded in the Content area. To use DocReader, students will need to click the PDF topic link and view the PDF as they normally would.
How to embed the PDF
Step 1: In the Content Section of your course, once you have the HTML editor open, select the ‘Insert Stuff‘ icon:
Step 2: Select ‘My Computer‘
Step 3: Select ‘Choose File‘ to select your desired PDF:
Step 4: Select ‘Upload‘
Step 5: Create the name of the PDF that you would like to appear in Brightspace, then select ‘Insert‘
Step 6: Once you see your Link Text name in the HTML text field, select the ‘Source Code‘ icon. You may have to click the ellipsis (…) button for more menu options:
Step 7: Paste the following code under the code into the HTML editor:
<p><iframe src="FileURLGoesHere" width="100%" height="700px"> </iframe></p>This should be pasted underneath the code that is already in the editor.
Step 8: From the pre-existing code that is in the HTML editor, copy the PDF file URL. That information will be after href= and before “target=
For example: /content/enforced…..pdf
Once you have your file name copied, paste it into the provided code where it says ‘FileURLGoesHere’. Make sure to paste it between the ” ” around ‘FileURLGoesHere’.
Select ‘Save‘
Step 9: Select Update
Step 10: Enjoy our newly embedded PDF!
If you have any questions or need assistance with this process, please contact us at idat@meredith.edu