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PDF Gallery Viewer
A simple plugin that creates a responsive PDF gallery with live thumbnail previews and a modal PDF viewer.
The facts
- Rating
- 5★ from 2
- Active installs
- 200+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 3 Jul 2026
- Added
- Apr 2025
- Requires WP
- 6.0
- Tested up to
- WP 7.0.4
- Requires PHP
- 7.2
- Downloads
- 2,610
Our analysis
AI-assistedPDF Gallery Viewer is a WordPress plugin that enables you to embed PDF galleries with live previews directly on your site. It uses PDF.js to display the first page of each PDF in the browser, allowing for a more interactive experience without needing server-side libraries. The plugin supports responsive layouts and includes features like customizable titles and a modal viewer for PDFs.
This plugin is suitable for users who want to showcase PDF documents in a visually appealing way, particularly those who need a gallery format. It is designed for ease of use with Gutenberg blocks and offers various layout options for different screen sizes.
Best for: This plugin is best for websites that need to display PDF documents in a gallery format.
What it does well
- ✓Allows embedding of PDF galleries with live previews
- ✓Responsive layouts adapt to different screen sizes
- ✓Includes customizable titles and modal viewer features
- ✓Supports dynamic shortcode generation for galleries
- ✓No external requests; all assets are served locally
Where it falls short
- •Limited information on specific use cases or user experiences
Verdict
PDF Gallery Viewer provides a straightforward solution for embedding PDFs, making it a practical choice for users looking to enhance their site with document galleries.
From the developer
Sergio Comella's own description of PDF Gallery Viewer, lightly tidied.
PDF Gallery Viewer allows you to easily embed PDF galleries with live previews. It uses PDF.js to render the first page of each PDF directly in the browser, without relying on server-side libraries like Imagick. Each item includes a customizable title and a “View” button that opens the PDF in a modal viewer.
The layout is responsive and adapts from a multi-column grid to a single-column stack on smaller screens.
Key Features:
- Live thumbnail of first PDF page (via PDF.js) — lazy-loaded via IntersectionObserver
- Responsive layouts (Grid, List, or Slider)
- Modal viewer with zoom, navigation, and download
- Gutenberg block with layout selector and drag-and-drop file integration
- Tooltip + truncation for long titles
- Dynamic shortcode generation by category, tag, or post
- Sorting UI (Title / Filename / Manual drag & drop)
- Manual ordering with FIFO/LIFO behavior for newly added items
- Zero external requests — all assets (PDF.js, Font Awesome, Swiper.js) served locally
- Assets only load on pages that contain a gallery
- Settings page (Settings > PDF Gallery Viewer) for site-wide accent color, surface color, text color, corner radius, and default layout
- Per-gallery accent color override via the
accent_colorshortcode/block attribute
Usage
Basic usage:
[pdf_gallery url=”https://example.com/doc.pdf” title=”Document Title”]
Multiple items in a container:
[pdf_gallery_container layout=”grid”]
[pdf_gallery url=”…” title=”…”]
[pdf_gallery url=”…” title=”…”]
[/pdf_gallery_container]
Sorting / ordering:
[pdf_gallery_container layout=”grid” order_by=”title” order=”asc” ui=”1″]
…
[/pdf_gallery_container]
Manual ordering (UI drag & drop) with FIFO/LIFO for newly added items:
[pdf_gallery_container id=”my-gallery” layout=”grid” order_by=”manual” manual_mode=”fifo” ui=”1″]
…
[/pdf_gallery_container]
IMPORTANT: Manual ordering is managed by admins and saved server-side (post meta) so the order is the same for all visitors.
For reliable persistence, always set a stable id=”…” on each container (the Gutenberg block does this automatically).
Dynamic by category:
[pdf_gallery_container category=”brochures” layout=”slider”]
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