Protected PDF Downloads – Download Form, Lead Capture & Expiring Links

Ask your visitors for their details before a PDF downloads. You build the form, each request arrives in your inbox, and the file is handed out through a signed link that expires, so the link someone forwards stops working instead of living forever.

Add your PDF catalogs, coupons or price lists, and drop a download button anywhere with a shortcode or a data attribute on any existing button.

Download form

• A form opens when a visitor clicks a download button, and the PDF opens once they send it
• Build it yourself with the basic fields: name, email, text, paragraph, number, dropdown, single choice, checkboxes, and a consent checkbox that links to your privacy page, with the link text you choose
• Reorder fields by dragging or with the keyboard, mark them required, add help text, and see the form open on a page of your own site as you edit, at desktop, tablet or phone size
• Write your own title, introduction, button label and thank-you message, and pick the button colors
• Email notifications like WPForms: choose who gets each request (one address or several), the sender, the subject and the message, with tags for every answer, in HTML or plain text; replying writes straight to the visitor
• Spam protection: a hidden trap field, a limit per visitor and optional Cloudflare Turnstile
• Accessible dialog: keyboard focus stays inside, Esc closes it, and errors are announced next to each field
• Works with page caching, and uses your theme’s font so it matches your site

Protected downloads

• Add as many PDF catalogs as you like, one at a time
• Every PDF is stored in a private folder with an unguessable name and served only through a signed link that stops working after 30 minutes
• Shortcode [catr_download_button id="123"], plus a data-catr-catalog="123" attribute for any button or link
• A clean admin that works on phones, with notices from other plugins kept above it, and a download button that inherits your theme’s style

Free and Pro

This plugin is complete on its own: it protects your PDFs and emails you every request. Catalog Rocket Pro is a separate commercial add-on that works on top of it and adds:

• Leads: every request saved in a list you can search and export to CSV
• Notifications: up to ten per form, each sent only when an answer says so, a different inbox for each catalog, and your logo and color on them
• Metrics: downloads, requests and conversion rate for each catalog, and the campaign every lead came from
• More fields: phone with country code and validation (ten digits for the US, Canada and Mexico), website, date, country and state, hidden campaign fields, fields that show up depending on an answer, and two-column layouts
• Content: headings, text blocks, images and dividers anywhere in the form, and a form without a visible title
• Ways to ask: an optional form, the file sent to the visitor’s email, returning visitors remembered, and a different form or mode for each catalog
• Your brand: every color, rounded corners for the window, the fields and the button, Google Fonts served from your own site or your own font files, weight, italic, underline and capitals for each part of the form, field styles, your logo, a blurred backdrop, and a form that slides in from the side or rises from the bottom on phones
• Big catalogs: PDFs larger than your hosting allows, bulk import, catalog export, and your own link duration

Catalog Rocket Pro can be tried free for 14 days, and its forms can be tried in a live demo.

External services

This plugin can use Cloudflare Turnstile to tell people from bots on the download form. It is off by default and only runs when you enter your own Turnstile site key and secret key under Catalogs → Settings.

When it is on, the page with the form loads Turnstile’s script from Cloudflare (challenges.cloudflare.com), which runs its check in the visitor’s browser. When the form is sent, your site sends Cloudflare the check’s answer and the visitor’s IP address to confirm the result. Cloudflare’s terms of service and privacy policy apply.

No other data leaves your site: the answers to the form are sent by email from your own server.