PDF-Analytics

Tracking user interaction within a PDF

We are using PDF.js a JavaScript library to parse PDF files using the HTML5 Canvas. The browser output is HTML, not a PDF. That makes tracking easy as cake.

Requirements

• Git
• PDF.js by mozilla
• Google Analytics

Interactions

pagechange (user scrolls to another page)

click

• download
• print
• zoomIn
• zoomOut
• presentationMode
• viewFind (user searches)

How to track

1. Get Git:
   https://git-scm.com/downloads

2. Get the JavaScript tracking snippet:
   https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/

3. Get PDF.js:

    $ git clone git://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js.git
    $ cd pdf.js
    # following pdf.js install instructions https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js#getting-the-code:
    $ npm install -g gulp-cli
    $ npm install
    $ gulp server
    # open http://localhost:8888/web/viewer.html

4. Add pdf-analytics.js:

• add pdf-analytics.js to pdf.js/web
• add your JavaScript tracking snippet to pdf.js/viewer.html (right before the closing body tag):

  <script src="pdf-analytics.js"></script>
    <script>
      var trackInteraction = function(cat, url) {
       ga('send', 'event', cat, 'scroll', url, {
        'transport': 'beacon'
       });
      }
   </script>
   <script>
     (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
     (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
     m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
     })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

     ga('create', 'YOUR-TRACKING-ID', 'auto');
     ga('send', 'pageview');

   </script>
 </body>

Done

Contributions

Are very welcome

License

MIT