How to Track PDF File Views Using Google Analytic?

A PDF file can’t include any javascript code in it, so it will not be easy for traffic visitors on any particular PDF file to check how many people have seen the file. In this post I will explain how you can track PDF file views without including any javascript or html code in it.

Google Analytic is a free (premium is also available for big companies) tool offered by Google that helps website owners to monitor website traffic, page views, real time visitors, events, etc. This tool also allows you to check traffic location, traffic source, keyword traffic, and social traffic, etc.

Benefits of Including Tracking Visits:

By adding Google Analytic javascript code in your website you can also track PDF file link clicks and PDF file viewers. This will be very helpful to know how many people are interested to view the particular PDF file or which file has more views than other files, how long users are viewing the PDF file, and many more things.

Steps to Track Visits:

There are two ways to track visits on PDF files:

1. Google Analytic Javasript Code.

2. Google Analytic Page Tracking Code.

Step 1 - Google Analytics Javascript Code:

Google Analytic provides a unique code for every website to track visitors. If you don’t have an account then make it, by following this URL: http://www.google.com/analytics/. To track views, Include unique Google Analytic code just above in all pages of your website. To get the code Go to Admin >> Select Account >> Tracking Info. The code will look like the below image:

Tracking Traffic to PDF file:

Add a URL to every link that is pointing to the document on your site.

For example: <a href="http://www.url.com/buy/product.pdf?pdf=Buy-Product" target="_blank">Buy Product</a>

In the above link I have added “?pdf=Buy-Product” in the parameter to the end of the URL link.

In the end, I have added a custom text so that I can tell this link was “Buy Product”. This code will not change anything in display or download by the users.

Check this in Google Analytic:

To check this, open your Google Analytic account, Go to >> Behavior >> Site Content >> All Pages

In the search box, type PDF to see all PDF files on which you have added the above parameter. Your PDF file title will appear there at the end of the URL parameter.

Step 2 - Google Analytic Page Tracking Code:

Google Analytic Page Tracking javascript code allows users to measure page views of a particular page on a website, it could be in the menu, body, sidebar, or even at the footer link.

For example, the code is like this:

<a href="xyz.pdf" onclick="ga('send', 'pageview', '/filepath');">Click to view</a>

Place the code and change the href and filepath to your own to make it working.

Important: To use the above code you must have the Google Analytic code on your website page.

Conclusion: Both the above mentioned processes are to measure page views on a particular file like PDF, video, text, etc. These steps will help you to track PDF file views on your website. If you still need any help, feel free to ask for it in comments.

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Free Tools to Extract Text and Images from PDF file?

In my previous articles I have shared many tutorials, that might help you somewhere in dealing with PDF files. Today I am going to share free online tools that will assist you to extract text and images from PDF documents.

PDF file formatting is the most preferred document format for sharing a document securely with others. Sometimes we need images or text from a PDF document to edit or save it on our computer, but extracting text and images is not an easy job when a PDF is concerned as certain actions can be restricted from being performed on them.

For this, we mostly prefer free online tools. Online tools are safer than free software programs that allows us to extract images and text on our system. However, many free tools may contain adware or malware viruses. To prevent from being affected by them, we are going to use online solutions instead of downloadable tools. Here, I am sharing some online websites which have been used by millions of users worldwide to extract text and images from Portable Document Format files.

Let’s check out the 2 websites.

1. onlineocr.net
2. extractpdf.com

Extract Using Online OCR:

Go to http://www.onlineocr.net, now click on Select file button and choose the PDF file. In STEP 2 choose the file language. After a few minutes your file will be uploaded. Now click on convert button in step 3.

Here, you can see that your file has been converted to .txt format (or what you have chosen). NOTE: In .docx format they don’t allow the document to be downloaded. If you want to download the document, then you have to convert the document to .txt format.

About Online OCR: Online OCR is a free online OCR service providing website that allows its users to convert PDF and Image files to Adobe PDF (.pdf), Microsoft Excel (.xls and .xlsx), MS Word (doc & docx), RTF Document (.rtf) and Text plain (.txt) format. Additionally, it also supports 46 international languages for conversion.

Extract Using Extract PDF:

Open http://www.extractpdf.com and click on Choose file (max 10mb) button, or you can also enter the file URL. Now click on Send File button to upload the document. Just after a short process your file should be uploaded onto their server. Now you will see 4 options:

1. Images: Use this option if you want to extract and save the enclosed images.
2. Text: By extracting text you can copy/download the converted text.
3. Fonts: Fonts can be also extracted if they are attached.
4. Metadata: Metadata is the information of the file. If you want to download it, then click on the tab, copy text and save it in notepad or in MS Word file.

If you want to download the image, click on it or if you only want the text, then click on the tab, copy it’s content and save it on your PC.

About Extract PDF: It is an efficient online tool to extract images, text, fonts and metadata from PDF files. It allows you to upload a max of 10mb of file. It’s the only website that allows the above 4 features for free.

If online conversation is not allowed in your office, then you can choose Adobe Reader to avail the facilities. You can download it from the official Adobe website: http://get.adobe.com/reader/. By using this software you can extract text from PDF file.

Conclusion: I have tried both websites and found them to be relevant for users. The above tools are excellent, the results of conversion is also very good. I have also tried many other tools but they were not as perfect as these two are in conversion.

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