Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Agent |
You can attach them and you can embed a viewer, but the answer that serves readers is usually neither.
What works
- Attach the file to the article. Readers download and open it.
- Embed a viewer from a document service that offers one, if your theme allows the embed.
Why to avoid both where you can
A document inside an article is invisible to search: its contents are not indexed, so nobody finds the answer by searching for it. It does not translate with the article, it usually reads badly on a phone, and it goes out of date separately from the article around it.
An article whose real content is in an attachment is an article that cannot do its job.
Write the content as an article
Almost every embedded document is a procedure or an explanation that would be better as text: findable, translatable, readable on any screen, and editable without a round trip through another program.
When a file is genuinely the answer
- A form somebody must print, complete and sign.
- A spreadsheet they will fill in and send back.
- A document that must be distributed exactly as issued.
In each case the file is the thing being delivered, not a container for text.
If you attach one
Say in the article what it contains and when it was last updated, so somebody can decide whether to open it without opening it.
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