iframed PDF in a Form

We have a form for requesting meals to be ordered from a vending service for when we have guests and such. Previously the menu was in the form as a formula URL that had the link to the menu as an attachment from a resources table.

I was asked to update the menu. That's when I learned that employees would click the link in the form and the attachment would download and then they would have to open the file to view the menu. Not optimal.

I did some research and found a way to embed the PDF menu in the form as an iframe.

Here's how:

1. upload the pdf to a file attachment field
2. create an HTML page
   • 
3. toggle the HTML button so you can add code
   • 
4. add this code to the HTML page
   •  <iframe src="https://docs.google.com/gview?url=COPY&PASTE_YOUR_PDF_ATTACHMENT_URL_HERE&amp;embedded=true" width="600" height="650" frameborder="0" target="_blank"></iframe> 
5. create a formula URL field
6. add this formula
   • URLRoot() & "db/" & AppID() & "?a=dbpage&pageid=20"
   • change the 20 to your page ID number
7. check the embed as iframe box and set the window size
   • 

That's it.

For additional optimization I used text HTML to wrap the iframed menu and other fields into a table, table row, and table cells so that the menu is to the left of the fields where the requested items are inputted.

And now life is a little easier for my colleagues:

Enjoy.