Wix Web Designer Tips
Retaining Filenames of PDFs in Wix
As a Wix website designer, I often get questions from clients on how to perform certain tasks in Wix. While Wix has a great forum that is filled with answers, it's sometimes hard to find the most commonly answered questions with one clear, concise answer. These pages are dedicated to explaining some of the most common Wix questions that clients ask me.
There are a few ways to allow for PDF or image files to be downloaded from your Wix website by website viewers. Watch this Wix Tutorial video for more info:
With PDFs, the PDFs will download with your correct filename now in Wix. However, you cannot customize the document URL of the file, and it will have an encoded URL such as: https://www.picklewix.com/_files/ugd/139de8_da1059b6d4c1425284d21e3b0eaa9083.pdf
Once the user downloads the file, however, it will have the PDF filename you gave it. This also applies to Word files (.doc or .docx) and Excel files (.xls or .xlsx).
Customizing Document URLS:
This is still not available on Wix, however, there is a feature request for this ability, which I agree is needed, you can vote for it here:
support.wix.com/en/article/wix-editor-request-customizing-document-urls
Download Images from Wix Websites: Image files download from Wix websites as .webp files with encoded filenames. If you want to link to an image they are going to have a filename like: 139de8_0979edafbaec4ece9d963d0a7409c05b~mv2.webp
To get around this issue with image downloads, you can use a Wix Pro Gallery that will allow you to change the settings to allow for downloads that WILL retain the filename for the end user.
See the video below for options for downloads from Wix Websites:
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Want to download images from your Wix website?
You can do this from your Wix Editor Media Library.
Learn how: How do I download all media from Wix »
Use Google Drive - Cloud Storage for file downloads in Wix:
You could also use Google Drive if you run out of space on Wix, or if you want the ability to replace the file over time (which is not possible currently in Wix). Google provides Drive as a free cloud service where you can upload up to 15GB of files that you can then use their "share" link to link the image, pdf or other file if desired. This would not be at your domain name as it will be on Google's domain.
What is nice about Google Drive is that it opens PDFs directly in the browser window, showing it the viewer immediately, and it gives them options to save, print etc. When they Download (save) the PDF file, it will retain the filename you originally used when uploading to Google Drive, so it's easy for your users to identify.
Learn more at:
See the screenshots provided here to see what a PDF link looks like in the Google Drive, as well as the second screenshot that shows where you can get the link to use in the Wix editor to add to a button or text link. First, upload your PDF or document, then once it's uploaded, while logged in, view the document, and you'll see a person with a plus symbol icon, that's the "Share" icon. Click on "Share" to popup a window where you can retrieve the link. Make sure to choose "Anyone with the link can view" so that it is a public link, then copy the link provided (click on "Get shareable link" if it's not showing immediately). I actually like this better than linking directly to a PDF in Wix anyway, because it opens up immediately (in most Browsers, most PDF links make the user jump through a hoop by allowing the browser to "trust" the download, but with the Google links, it opens immediately with no popups or hoops to jump through.
Note: There is also a Google Drive App in the Wix app market that also allows you to sync up your Google Drive documents to your website, so check that out as well as an option.
See Google Drive's options below:
