Allow us to upload a PDF file to be linked to

1. 87

   kerbevposted 10 years ago

   I often make a printable .PDF file and link to it in a lens.  Sometimes I the page needs a few.
   
   In the past I hosted these on my own domain and linked to them, however, now with a 2 link maximum to a domain this will not work.  Perhaps if we could upload a file that could be downloaded, it would solve this. 
   
   Pipe dream, but one with possibility, I believe.

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2. 67

   relacheposted 10 years ago

   You already have this ability.  You just need to host the file somewhere it can be downloaded...and not violate the 2 outgoing links per domain per Hub rule.  HubPages has held firm when this has come up in the past.
   
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/114741#post2439466

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   1. 87

      kerbevposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, that's what I said I did in the past. 
      
      I would still like it.  This 2 link thing is killing me.  I'm not promoting myself, I am providing what the visitor came for - content.

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3. 65

   lobobrandonposted 10 years ago

   Yeah I needed this too and it would be great if dropbox was included in the whitelist of sites we can link to (i.e. more than 2 links).

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4. 0

   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   kerbev, two thumbs up on your request. I too would love the ability to have a PDF available through our hubs as you request. Thinking outside the box, maybe there is a concern about the uploading of PDFs to HP? Related to your request, I tried printing one of my how to hubs as a PDF. I got 15 pages; it looked OK, but wasn't great in that some photos were split from page to page. So I guess our visitors can print our whole hubs in lieu of getting a PDF provided.

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5. 61

   jodijoyousposted 10 years ago

   Julie, it's not perfect, but a partial solution might be to host it on mediafire or similar.  I did that with one of my lenses before we had the recipe module with the print option.  Obviously, it's still only two links.

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6. 0

   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   Jodi, I'd not heard of mediafire - so thanks for that suggestion. I do have my own hosted website that I can surely use. I'm wondering, if the PDF information can fit on a long page, could you make it a high resolution JPG and insert that? And have more than one JPG for additional pages? Or is that not a logical workaround?

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   1. 61

      jodijoyousposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You could  have a couple on your own site, a couple on mediafire (or similar), just to have more options, depending on how many files you need to host.
      
      A jpg would probably have to be blown up quite a bit to be legible, and might also be a big file to download.

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7. 0

   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   Jodi, so that would make sense to keep with the 2 links out to any one domain, right? I wonder if there is such a media site that is whitelisted so that you could have more than 2 links to it if you had PDFs there. You know what I mean? Rather than spreading stuff around too much.

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   1. 61

      jodijoyousposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Probably (to answer your first question).
      
      As for the second, I don't know the answer.  Maybe someone here longer can chime in.

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8. 0

   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   Well, Jodi, I'm sure we've given some useful information to the original poster. Thanks for the exchange!

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   1. 61

      jodijoyousposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Ack! I just realized that link was in a callout and was taken out in the transfer.  So, good idea to go check and make sure your links are all where they are supposed to be.

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9. 66

   psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago

   It would be nice to be able to upload, but until then there are many free hosting services and you can have two links to each of them. E.g. 2 to google docs, 2 to photobucket etc.

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10. 69

    lisavollrathposted 10 years ago

    OK, I use Google Drive to host the .pdf files for my hubs. Mostly, to pattern files for specific projects, which generally means one file per hub.
    
    I've gotta ask: why are you needing to link to multiple .pdf files for a single article? Are you offering such a huge amount of downloadable content that it can't be merged into a single file? If so, why does so much of it have to be downloadable, instead of making it part of the hub?

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    1. 87

       kerbevposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       For printables, they could be put in one large pdf, but generally people don't want to print all of them.  Plus, having separate ones increases click outs which I think is helpful.

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       1. 46

          Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          No, increasing click outs has nothing to do with being successful on HP. I think you are referring to how the Squidoo system for payment ranking worked.  Here, if you are trying to encourage click outs, you are encouraging people to leave your Hub, which lowers your "time on page" stats, among other things. Unless someone is going to buy something from that PDF, you are probably losing money by encouraging people to go elsewhere to find the information they thought they would find on your Hub article.

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          1. 87

             kerbevposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             Google likes to see clickouts, too.  That was what I was thinking.  Not internal rankings.
             
             And, I'm not making them go elsewhere for what they would provide.  It's a link to a printable, easy to work, nicely formated item.

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       2. 69

          lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          They don't have to print them all. Once the .pdf file is downloaded, they can pick and choose which to print.

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          1. 87

             kerbevposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             But people are stupid.

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11. 66

    psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago

    Another thought, you could propose adding Google drive or your file sharing host of choice to the white-list so that the 2 link limit is removed.

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