I wish to display a PDF file in DNN5. What is the best practice? Create a page that displays a file and target a new window? (This doesn't allow for the navagation to be available to the site visitor. S/he needs to know to close or switch windows to get back to the site.) or Use and IFrame? (I am having trouble with sizing the IFrame window, using this method)

I have seen modules that will display a PDF file inside of a DotNetNuke page. My normal practice is to set links to PDF files and set the link to open in a new tab or window.

Thanks Joe. I suspect that is what I will be doing going forward.
Do you know if the IFrame has any practical purpose and do you know of anyone who usese it successfully?

The stated purpose of the IFrame module is:

"The IFrame is a browser feature which allows you to display content from another web site within a frame. Within the content of DotNetNuke, the IFrame module allows the embedding of an internal/external URL within the module"

Personally, I tend to view the IFrame modules as a module of last resort.  I think of using it when almost nothing else will work.

In the case of PDF files, there are better alternatives.

Thanks Joe. I will play around with IFrame, displaying pages from another website to see how it reacts, but it sounds like I am going to conclude there are better ways to handle things than using IFrame. Bart

Joe,
Do you happen to remember the name(s) of the modules that can display a PDF w/i a DNN page?
I searched Snowcovered but didn't see any.
Thanks!

Allen I played around with IFrame to display a PDF and got it to work pretty well. It was a matter of setting the correct page size to match the rest of the website page widths. It does have one problem. If a navagation menu dropdown contains many sub-menu items, enough that the list of sub-menu items would extend far enough down to need to overlap the top of acurrently displayed PDF, the list of sub-items is cut short (giving an appearance that the sub-menu went behind the PDF). I found this to be unacceptable and will not use IFrame for my solution, though otherwise it looks and works really great. I may consider using this if I know I have a site that will only contain 3 or 4 sub-menu items maximum underneath any of the navigation buttons. If I did use this, I would make a template of the one that I created, so that I could easily create pages which contain PDFs, as all I would have to change was the url pointing to the .pdf file. Anyhow, I went with the solution of just displaying the PDF in a new Window or Tab (and not containing navigation, requiring the site visitor to know that he has to switch windows or close the window with the PDF File to get back to my site). A second reason I went with this decision was that my client has a requirement to be able to periodically add new PDF files to the site. this allows my client to add additional PDF files via just adding another link and uploading the file. The client is not of the technical level to add new pages, which would be required if I use the IFrame. However, I would be very interested to hear of the names of the other modules that can display a PDF within a DNN page if Joe can remember.

There is a new module on Snowcovered that works with Scribd.com. This allows you to embed their excellent IPaper module into your site and show pdf, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. You may even be able to take the code available on Scribd and put in into a text/html module and do this for free too.

Greg

I looked around, but I can't find a module that displays PDF files directly.