Other Media

Besides inserting images in the wiki, you may want to link to a pdf file or insert a podcast in MP3 format for download.

Creating a link to a file on Wikieducator is similar to the process involved in uploading an image; first we will place the associated wiki markup into the content of the page concerned, then use the File upload page to upload the actual file into the wiki.

Inserting portable document format (pdf) files

Sometimes, you may want to insert a link for users to download a file. The portable document format (pdf) is an openly documented format, therefore the WikiEducator community is comfortable with uploading the pdf file format, taking into account our commitment to the principles of free content. The disadvantage with pdf files is that users will not be able to easily edit these files, and this could be viewed as a restriction of freedom.

Remember that the WikiEducator community does not prescribe which software users should use, but we are committed to providing resources in formats which must have the minimum requirement that they can be viewed and/or edited with free software alternatives.

The basic syntax for inserting a pdf file is:

[[media:name_of_file.pdf|Piped link text goes here]]

Tip: We do not encourage users to upload files in a closed format, such as Microsoft's document format (.doc). If you want to do this, you must also upload the same document in an open document format, so that both the closed and free software alternatives are available. Open Office is free software that produces files in an open document format (for example: .odt). This is free software and you can download and install this word processing software on your machine. So there is no excuse for not being able to generate open versions of your documents (.odt format) out of respect for users who may not use non-free software or who may not be able to afford the license costs of closed software.

Alternatively, you may want to upload an MP3 audio file for users to download or launch in their desktop media players. (There are ways to insert MP3 audio for playback directly in the browser, but we will deal with this in the intermediate tutorials). The basic syntax is similar to the pdf example above:

[[media:name_of_file.mp3|Piped link text goes here]]

There is a file limit size on WikiEducator, so to conserve bandwidth please try to keep audio files under 1MB.

Activity

Go to the Sandbox on your User page: Find a small pdf file on your desktop and insert a link to this pdf document; or Create a new pdf file for upload into Wikieducator Experiment with the alternate text, by including a piped link.

Note: If you do not have a legal copy of Adobe's pdf writer, Open Office is free software which includes the capability of generating pdf files. Open your document in Open Office and use the File>export feature selecting .pdf as your export format.

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