skip to content

Search

How to Share a PDF in an Instagram Story or Bio

3 min read

Can't upload a PDF to Instagram? Here's the simple workaround pros use to share their documents, lookbooks, and menus with a single link.

# instagram
# pdf
# social-media
# marketing
# link-in-bio
Not in series

The Instagram Problem: You Can’t Share a PDF

You’ve created a beautiful PDF. Maybe it’s a new menu for your restaurant, a lookbook for your fashion brand, a guide for your followers, or a flyer for an event. You want to share it with your Instagram audience, so you go to create a post or a story and realize… you can’t.

Instagram does not allow you to upload PDF files.

So what do people do? They resort to clumsy workarounds:

  • They take screenshots of the PDF pages and post them as a carousel. The quality is terrible, and the text is often unreadable.
  • They cram all the information into the caption, which looks messy and gets ignored.
  • They just give up and don’t share the document at all.

There’s a much cleaner, more professional way to do it, and it all revolves around the one thing Instagram is built for: sharing links.

An image illustrating sharing a PDF worldwide through social media.

The trick is to host your PDF online and then share the link to it in your Instagram bio or story. This gives your followers a seamless, one-tap experience to view your high-quality document.

Here’s how to do it in two simple steps:

First, you need to upload your PDF to a service that will give you a direct link. While you could use Google Drive, it often creates a clunky experience (as we’ve discussed elsewhere).

A better option is a dedicated PDF hosting service like MaiPDF, which is designed for this exact purpose.

  1. Go to the website and upload your PDF.
  2. Get your link. The service will instantly generate a clean, simple link (e.g., maipdf.com/your-menu).
  3. That’s it. Your PDF is now live on the web, ready to be shared.

Now that you have your link, you have two primary places to share it on Instagram for maximum visibility.

This is the most common and effective method.

  • Edit Your Profile: Go to your Instagram profile and tap “Edit Profile.”
  • Add the Link: Paste your new PDF link into the “Website” field.
  • Direct Your Audience: In your post captions, simply write “Full menu at the link in our bio!” or “Download our free guide—link in bio!”

Your followers know exactly what to do. They tap the link in your bio, and your PDF opens beautifully on their phone.

2. In an Instagram Story (Using the “Link” Sticker)

If you have access to the “Link” sticker in your stories (most business and creator accounts do), this is a fantastic way to drive immediate traffic.

  • Create Your Story: Upload a compelling image or a short video related to your PDF. You could even use a screenshot of the PDF’s cover page.
  • Add the Link Sticker: Tap the sticker icon, choose the “Link” sticker, and paste your PDF link.
  • Customize the Sticker Text: Change the sticker text to something enticing, like “View Our New Menu” or “Get the Free Guide Here.”
  • Add a Call to Action: Add text or a GIF that says “Tap Here!” to draw attention to the link sticker.

When a viewer taps the sticker, your PDF opens directly within the Instagram app. It’s a frictionless experience that leads to much higher engagement than asking them to navigate away from the app.

Stop fighting with Instagram’s limitations. By converting your PDFs into simple links, you can share your documents professionally and give your followers the easy access they expect.