Best way to display a PDF on a Confluence page without losing visual quality?

Question

I've been trying to embed PDF documents directly into Confluence pages using the native pdf macro, but the results have been underwhelming—especially for design-heavy files. Layouts get distorted, fonts don’t render properly, and the overall visual fidelity is compromised.

Has anyone found a better way to view or display high-quality PDFs in Confluence without forcing users to download them?

Ideally, I’m looking for:

Accurate rendering (especially for charts, graphics, and formatted text)

Scrollable or paginated view directly in the page

Compatibility with Confluence Cloud or Data Center

Any third-party macros, workarounds, or creative hacks you’d recommend?

Would love to hear what’s worked for others. Thanks in advance!

Alex Mendes_ikuTeam_ · Answer

Hi @Namita Awasthi,

I'd like to suggest you also try our app PDF Editor Macro & Embed for Confluence (Sign, Annotate) , which will allow not only view PDF files with your preferred layout, but also edit the them directly in Confluence pages.

Best,

Alex

Namita Awasthi_t3o2ux · Answer

Sure, will try the apps. Thanks!

Teodora V _Warsaw Dynamics_ · Answer

Hi @Namita Awasthi

Sadly, Confluence does experience struggles with the high-fidelity design files. A possible, but probably not exactly desired workaround, may be uploading the PDF to Google Drive or OneDrive and embedding it using an iframe (HTML macro or Smart Links).

Alternatively, you can look into apps like PDF Viewer by MacroBox or Scroll PDF Exporter by K15t (great to generate PDFs but also supports embedding).

I often struggle with the same problem (especially when we review marketing files), and what I usually do is attach the PDFs anyway, but I make sure I instruct people (with the Info panel macro) to download them on their machine and then open and review.