PDF with embedded videos

DEVONthink
1

I like to capture web pages as markdown to facilitate any required cleanup. I then convert them to PDF for highlighting and the rest of my normal info PKM workflow.

An advantage of this method is that I can use some simple HTML to include videos in the markdown as they appeared in the original article.

Unfortunately the resulting PDFs do not include links to hosted videos (youtube, vimeo). This seems like a limitation of the PDF format, though it does seem to support embedded videos and direct links to mp4s, etc.

Have I got this right? Does anyone have a workaround or other recommendation?

1 Like
2

How does the source of your Markdown document look like?

3

Here’s a snippet:

Physical interactions between objects are two-way, with both objects influencing each other. We cannot make virtual objects physically influence your hand through touch, but we can use light to show a relationship between the object and your hand.

<p style="text-align: center">
<iframe title="vimeo-player" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/525713210" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br /><i>In this video, virtual light is cast from the cubes onto the real hands and table, helping to illustrate proximity.</i>
</p>

Article text continues...

Resulting markdown preview (with cool CSS from @OlivierPS):

PDF resulting from Convert to PDF:

4

Try using a normal md link, not an iframe:

5

Thank you for sharing this approach. I’ve looked at that same SO link before. The recommended approach, which I’ve used at times, fakes an embedded video with a screenshot and normal markdown link.

If I go that route I’ll just forego the screenshot and use a plain text link - I’m already spending too much time cleaning up these pages as it is.

But it doesn’t accomplish what I would like - integration of playable videos in the PDF document.

I can leave it as markdown or convert it to HTML, but neither support highlighting as well as PDF does.

6

I think that this is not really a DT issue, at least not directly. The relevant question is rather: how to convert a video link in MD to a playable video link in PDF. I suppose there are tools that are able to do that, maybe even Pandoc, which is free.

7

I agree, and I have searched along those lines. As usual, the results were somewhat conflicting and few addressed the very specific issue of rendering markdown with embedded hosted videos to PDF.

It seems that the main issue may be with Adobe, if this thread is to be believed:

I’m hopeful this is not the case, but posted here for thoughts and alternatives.

8

Not so unusual with Adobe, unfortunately.

9

For the record, here’s a way to do the fake embedded video trick easier: