Quest for PDFs

I just realized that I never attempted to upload the PDF file that contains images scanned from MMMB from my artifact inventory to my blog.  Today, I remembered why – Blogger doesn’t allow you to embed PDF files in your blog.  You can embed videos and images (.jpg, .gif, etc.) but not PDF files.  So then I thought, I’ll be really clever and use GoogleDocs since I set up a separate email address for the research project (bondsofintimacy@gmail.com), and I can just make the converted PDF file public (since I put a Works Cited page in, all the images are properly documented).  However, I am not very familiar with GoogleDocs (oh, the shame and the horror!) and it took me a couple tries to realize it was refusing to convert my PDF file into a GoogleDoc because there were images and text mixed together.  Boo.

I solved my own problem, just now.  Sorta.  I admitted defeat and went to the Help section for Blogger, and found two websites that can offer a solution.  The first is Docstoc and the second is Scribd.  Both sites allow you to upload files (Word, PowerPoint, PDF, etc.) and then embed them in your blog, allowing your readers to view and download the file without leaving your website.  The only problem is, as far as I can tell, your file becomes public and published in their search indexes.  I think that as long as anything I embed via either of these two sites has a proper Works Cited section, along with information about my project, it should be okay.  My research project is, after all, non-profit and for educational purposes.  The only other item that I would be interested in embedding is the future undergraduate study guide, which will be my original work.  There are settings that allow you to protect your file from changes and edits, so that's good to know.

If anyone else knows of a better site or method to embed PDFs into blogs, please let me know.  Or if you end up using either Docstoc or Scribd, let me know too.  I’m going to play around with both sites Wednesday and see which one I like best.  You’ll know if it works or not because I’ll have successfully embedded my scans for my artifact inventory in a new blog post by the end of the week.