WordPress: How to add a file link
May 5, 2009 / Updated: October 31, 2019 / Lena Shore
Filed under: Tutorials, Wordpress, Wordpress Quick Start
Adding links to files in your WordPress pages and posts is just as easy as adding images. Follow these instructions below to add links to your own files.
I need to upload my file.
- Login to your admin area.
- Navigate to the page or post you want to insert the link/document.
- Place your cursor where you want the link to appear.
- Click the “Add media” icon. (It’s right above your editing tools)
- Choose “Select Files” and find the file you want to upload from your computer.
- When it is done uploading you will see a small thumbnail of your file and some areas for you to fill in.
- In the “Title” area, choose the title of the link you want displayed.
- The “Link URL” should already be filled in, but if it isn’t click “file URL”
- Select “Insert into Post”.
I have already uploaded my file.
- Login to your admin area.
- Navigate to the page or post you want to insert the link/document.
- Place your cursor where you want the link to appear.
- Click the “Add media” icon. (It’s right above your editing tools)
- Navigate to the “Media Gallery” Tab
- Select the “Show” link that is next to the file you want to link to.
- In the “Title” area, choose the title of the link you want displayed.
- The “Link URL” should already be filled in, but if it isn’t click “file URL”
- Select “Insert into Post”.
These instructions are assuming you are using WordPress 2.7.x
Hi Lena,
I can’t see anything that looks remotely like a sun.
Yep. You are right. This was for an older version of WordPress. I updated the instructions.
Hi Lena,
I followed your instructions on adding the link to the document, however what I am looking to do is open the document (it’s a word doc) in a new page but all it’s doing is downloading to the computer. Is there a way to get it to open without downloading it?
Internet browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc) aren’t made to open Word documents. You must use Microsoft Word to open the file. If you don’t have Word on your computer, it can only download the file. If you do have Word on your computer there may be a local way to set your computer to open downloaded files in the proper programs. Although, I wouldn’t want to do this automatically as it is a security risk. However, you could check your preferences on your specific browser or your computer and see if there is an option for that.
Hi Lena,
Thank you for the help. I might be doing something wrong. I followed these steps to link newsletter PDFs to my website homepage, but my linked titles are ending up on their own page instead of inserting into the homepage. Any tips for how to correct this?
Thank you!
Hi Lesley!
Yes. I think I know what is happening. You want to re-read step 8. The URL is to a page with the link and not the link itself. I should probably clarify in my instructions a bit more.
You have: http://delta.aplaceforwomen.org/home/laadsv-summer-2010-6/
You want: http://delta.aplaceforwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/LAADSV-Summer-20105.pdf
It’s one of the options when uploading the file and how you want the file name. Make sense?
(:
good share, great article, very usefull for us…thanks!
Hi Lena,
I’ve enjoyed scrolling through the technical advise here on your blog. I’ve been meaning to prepare some links to pdfs on my blog, but hadn’t done it yet, mostly because I wasn’t sure how and haven’t had the gumption to learn. Problem solved! Thanks.
Thanks, it really helped!
🙂