How to Insert a PDF Into Google Docs (The Workarounds)
The short answer
Insert a PDF into Google Docs two ways: as an image of each page (Insert → Image → Upload and pick the pages, or the “PDF to images” route), or as editable text (upload the PDF to Drive, open with Google Docs, copy the content in). There’s no one-click “embed PDF” button in Docs — that’s the honest catch, and it trips everyone.
The honest reality: Docs can’t embed PDFs directly
Google Docs has no “insert PDF” feature. If you’ve seen other tools embed PDFs — a viewer right in the page — that’s a different product (Google Sites can, Docs can’t). So you pick a workaround:
- For a document of pages to display — convert the PDF pages to images and insert them.
- For editable content — convert the PDF to text and paste it.
Neither is a true embed, but one of them fits every real use case.
Insert PDF pages as images
- Convert the PDF pages to images (PDF to image covers the how).
- In Google Docs: Insert → Image → Upload from computer, select the page images.
- They appear in order — each PDF page becomes a picture in your document.
Good for: showing pages in a report, attaching a scan visually. The images are static — no text selection, no editing inside them.
Insert the PDF as editable text
- Upload the PDF to Google Drive.
- Right-click → Open with → Google Docs — it converts to an editable document (see PDF to Google Doc).
- Copy what you need and paste it into your document.
Good for: quotes, reference material, anything you’ll edit. Layout won’t match the original — you’re getting content, not design.
The honest part
Two quick notes: scanned PDFs only work with the image route (no text to convert — OCR is the detour if you need text). And if you truly need a clickable PDF embedded in a Google page, the honest answer is linking it instead — upload the PDF to Drive, set it to “Anyone with the link”, and insert the link into your document. Readers click, the PDF opens, everybody wins.