58
Embed Any Document – Embed PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel Files
Easy document viewing that might break your site during an update.
Declining
58/100
The plugin is easy to use but carries risks regarding site stability and external dependencies.
Active installs
~55,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 50k+
Rating
4.2★
92 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-41%
Declining fast
250 → 148 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORdownloads down 41% vs a year ago
- MINORnot updated in 6 months
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining fast · -41% in the last year
250/day a year ago→148/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayEmbed Any Document is a generally well-regarded plugin for displaying PDFs and Office files on WordPress sites, valued for its simplicity and flexibility, but it carries real caveats around reliability after updates, loading issues, and dependency on external viewers that make it unsuitable for some use cases.
What people like
- +Easy to set up and use, with a clean presentation for embedded documents×5
- +Shortcode is entered directly in the content panel without needing a separate document library
- +Flexible embedding options, including support for multiple shortcode configurations
- +Reported as stable and trouble-free over long-term use by some users
Common complaints
- −Version 2.7.9 update broke entire WordPress sites for multiple users (since 2.7.9)
- −Documents frequently slow to load or fail to load without a manual reload×2
- −Relies on external viewers (Google, Microsoft, Box), making it unusable on intranets or for privately hosted files
- −PDF links break on domain migration because the plugin stores full URLs instead of relative paths
- −Does not work properly with Elementor, despite support spending significant time before acknowledging the incompatibility
- −Google Drive embedded documents not visible to viewers in some configurations
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.15★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.20★
- 2%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 100% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2025-12-062026-03-062026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 92 total
Latest reviews · 89 analyzed
- 2025-11-21★★★★★Update broke sitesazoloeaglesun
- 2023-05-17★★★★★Document loading problemssjplma7937
- 2022-12-10★★★★★very bad pluginAytekinet
- 2022-06-03★★★★★Really neat and works well with elementorconradish
- 2021-11-22★★★★★Excellent Plugin for Displaying PDF without Surrendering the Filebrendankelly
- 2021-11-15★★★★★Perfectegocefalo
- 2021-11-05★★★★★Pl;ugin limitationscasperroux
- 2021-09-16★★★★★This plugin is just beautiful!!!ikihinojosa
- 2021-09-16★★★★★Perfectkawapanga
- 2021-09-16★★★★★Easy to understand pluginskumar1st
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
141
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
145
Prior 7-day baseline
116
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
156
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-2.8%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
100%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.45
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
69%
5★ share in analyzed sample
2%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.17 → 4.15★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered