Share a PDF and See Who Opened It
When you send a PDF as an email attachment, it disappears the moment you hit send. You have no idea whether the proposal was read, whether the deck reached a decision-maker, or whether the file was opened at all. A sharable PDF link fixes that: instead of attaching the file, you send a link, and the link tells you what happened next.
PDFMarkr Share is a free tool built for exactly this. You upload a PDF, get a tracked link, and see who opened it — who the viewer was if you asked for their email, how long they spent, and which pages actually held their attention. You can watch a document being read live, see whether someone reached the end, and know what device they were on.
It is also privacy-first. You can require an email or a passcode before anyone views, ask for an NDA, set an expiry date, and allow or block downloading — all per link. And for the most sensitive files, a private end-to-end mode encrypts the document in your browser so that even we can never read it.
Why a tracked link beats an email attachment
An email attachment is a dead end for the sender. Once it lands in someone's inbox you lose all visibility: you cannot tell if it was opened, skimmed, or ignored. A tracked link keeps you in the loop after you send, so you know when a document is actually being read and can follow up at the right moment.
Because you are sending a PDF link that tracks opens rather than the raw file, you also stay in control. You can require an email, set the link to expire, or turn off downloads — without chasing down copies that are already sitting in other people's inboxes.
How to share a PDF with tracking
Open PDFMarkr Share, upload your PDF, and you get a sharable link in seconds. You can create a share anonymously and claim it later, or sign in first with a magic email link — there is no password to set.
Before you send, decide how open or locked-down the link should be: require the viewer's email so you can put a name to each visit, add a passcode, ask for an NDA, set an expiry date, or block downloading. Then copy the link and send it however you normally would — email, chat, or a message.
You can also bundle several PDFs behind one tracked link with a data room, so a whole set of documents shares a single link and a single analytics view.
What you learn about every viewer
Each time someone opens your link, PDFMarkr Share records the visit. If you asked for an email, you see who it was; if not, you still see the visit itself along with the device they used, and a live "viewing now" indicator while the document is open.
The most useful part is page-by-page engagement. You can see how long a viewer spent on each page, which sections held their attention, and whether they reached the end or dropped off early. That tells you far more than a plain open receipt — it shows you what people actually read.
Access controls and a private, zero-knowledge option
Every link carries its own access rules. Require an email or a passcode, ask viewers to accept an NDA before they see anything, set an expiry so the link stops working after a deadline, and decide whether downloading is allowed. Because files are stored to power viewing and tracking, this is a real hosted sharing product rather than a browser-only tool.
When confidentiality matters most, choose private end-to-end mode. Your file is encrypted in your browser with AES-GCM, and only the ciphertext is ever stored on our servers — the decryption key travels inside the link itself, so we can never read your document. Anyone with the full link can open it, so treat that link like the key it is.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Uploading a PDF, getting a tracked link, and seeing who opened it are free. You can start without an account and claim the share later, or sign in with a magic email link to keep all your links and their analytics in one place.
Turn on the require-email access control for the link. Viewers enter their email before the document opens, so each visit is tied to a name. Without email capture you still see the visit, the time spent on each page, and the device — just not who the person was.
You can block downloading per link, and you can require an email or passcode and set an expiry so access is limited. A link can always be passed on by someone you gave it to, so PDFMarkr Share focuses on controlling and tracking access rather than promising a file can never be re-shared.
You get page-by-page engagement: how long each page was viewed, which pages held attention, whether the viewer completed the document, a live "viewing now" indicator, and the device used. If email is required, all of that is tied to a specific person.
PDFMarkr Share covers the core of document sharing with view analytics — tracked links, access controls, data rooms, and a zero-knowledge private mode — for free. It is newer and lighter than the big enterprise suites, so it does not include things like CRM integrations, e-signature workflows, or advanced admin controls. See the DocSend alternative page for a fuller comparison.