Embedded ArcGIS Online PDF Not Working Properly

[chrisj5]

Hello,

I am a students who uses ArcGIS StoryMaps as a portfolio for some of my class projects. In the past I have uploaded PDF's to ArcGIS Online and then have embedded them been into StoryMaps as a card and it opens up into a new tab. There were no issues before. Now, if I am logged in and previewing my StoryMap, when I click on the embed portion of the story it will both open and download the PDF. I saw that someone else asked about this in a separate post and was told that ESRI chose to move toward a download only option for PDF's. That's fine, but since this update my embedded PDF's are not readily opening or downloading if I am not logged in.

If I am logged out and previewing the story (as if I was a perspective employer or member of the public), when I click on the embedded link it opens to a blank page and does not download. To get it to download, I have to click in the URL section of the browser and hit enter to refresh the page to get it to download. This is not ideal. Is there a way to get the embedded link in a card to either open or download after one click?

[AbbyE_Esri]

Hi @chrisj5 ,

Could you elaborate a bit on the desired behavior here? If the goal is to open the PDF in a new tab and not automatically download, that should be the expected behavior, though we could do some file/browser specific troubleshooting. If the goal is to have an automatic download when clicking the card, I don't see this likely being supported, since this would lead to a download without the preview opening the PDF in a new browser supplies. Additionally, once opening the PDF in a new browser tab, there is the option for the file to be downloaded from that tab.

Could you send a link to either the story or the PDF where you are seeing this issue? I'm also curious which browser types where you can see this automatic download occurring. I don't see the automatic download on all embedded PDFs, but would like to attempt your exact workflow so we can see where the difference is in that PDF expectation.

--Abby

[chrisj5]

Thanks for looking into this!

Ideally, I would want the PDF to just open in a new tab, no automatic downloading.

Here is Story 1 where nothing appears when the card is clicked: https://arcg.is/OuqG

Here is is Story 2 where a PDF automatically starts downloading when the card is clicked: https://arcg.is/0aKbL51

I have these actions happening in both Firefox and Google Chrome.

[AbbyE_Esri · Accepted solution]

Hi @chrisj5 ,

The difference between the embedded PDFs in these stories is where the PDFs are hosted. In Story 1, nothing appears when the "2023 Washington State Enhanced Hazard Mitigation Plan" card is clicked because that PDF is not hosted in ArcGIS Online. When you host your PDFs in ArcGIS Online (like the "Impervious Surface Elementary Schools Grounds in Pierce County" PDF in Story 2), the only option to link to that PDF is through a download. To prove this, if you go to your ArcGIS item details page for that PDF, you will see no option to view that PDF, only to download.

Because of this, this is more of an ArcGIS Online behavior to address than an ArcGIS StoryMaps behavior. It looks like this was actually a recent, intentional change by ArcGIS Online for more secure practices. See the full description on ArcGIS Online's Esri Community here.

To at least workaround this automatic download in your story, host the PDF outside of ArcGIS Online and use that external link in your embed (like you do in Story 1). 

Let me know if this works for you!

--Abby

[chrisj5]

Hi Abby,

The strange thing is that both PDF's are hosted through ArcGIS Online and were uploaded in the same manner on the same date. I don't understand why they are behaving differently if they are both hosted through ArcGIS Online.