SharePoint 2013: Replace the PDF icon

I uploaded a PDF to SharePoint 2013 and noticed that the PDD icon is not the official and recognizable Adobe PDF icon. In this article I will tell you how to replace the SharePoint 2013 PDF icon.

OOTB PDF icon from SharePoint 2013

Is it a document with a belt or what ? Nevermind I don’t like it and I am very certain that most of the users out there do not recognize the icon – and that is the main purpose of the icon right?

Search result with out-of-the-box SharePoint 2013 PDF icon

With SharePoint 2010 there was no PDF support out of the box – afaik there was no icon at all. I should be happy and quite right? Nope, created a small powershell that replaced the icon (either you place it next to the script or the script downloads it from the Adobe page).

The result will look like this – way better if you ask me.

Original PDF icon – as expected!

Same icon in a document library

Powershell to the rescue – once again!

And here comes the small script:

1. #########################################################################################
2. # by Max Melcher, http://melcher.it, @maxmelcher
3. # Feel free to change and reuse as you wish - use on your own risk
4.  
5. # Script that replaces the OOTB SharePoint 2013 PDF icon with the orignal Adobe PDF icon.
6. # Execute on each webfrontend
7. #########################################################################################
8.  
9. #settings
10. $destination = "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\IMAGES\icpdf.png"
11.  
12. #Check if the icon exists otherwise download it
13. $item = Get-ChildItem pdficon_small.png -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
14.  
15. #Helper
16. function download{
17. # usage: download http://url c:\temp
18. param([string]$URL, [string]$destination)
19. Write-Host "Downloading $URL ..."
20. $clnt = new-object System.Net.WebClient -ErrorVariable err -ErrorAction "SilentlyContinue"
21. $clnt.DownloadFile($url,$destination)
23. if ([String]::IsNullOrEmpty($err) -eq $true)
24. {
25. Write-Output " - Download completed."
26. }
27. else
28. {
29. Write-Error "Download ERROR - Check URL: $err"
30. }
31. }
32.  
33. function RestartIIS(){
34. $title = "Restart IIS"
35. $message = "Do you want to restart the local IIS?"
36. $yes = New-Object System.Management.Automation.Host.ChoiceDescription "Yes","Restarts IIS."
37. $no = New-Object System.Management.Automation.Host.ChoiceDescription "No","Silently continues..."
38. $options = [System.Management.Automation.Host.ChoiceDescription[]]($yes, $no)
39. $result = $host.ui.PromptForChoice($title, $message, $options, 0)
40. if ($result -eq 0){
41. Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Restarting IIS"
42. iisreset /noforce
43. }
44. }
45.  
46.  
47. if ($item)
48. {
49. Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Supplied icon found - overwriting"
50. Copy-Item $item -Destination $destination -Force
51. }
52. else
53. {
54. Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Downloading icon from Adobe"
55. Download "http://www.adobe.com/images/pdficon_small.png" $destination
56. }
57.  
58. Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Icon replaced"
59.  
60. #Icon will only be changed after iisreset or reboot
61. RestartIIS
62.  
63.  
64. Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "done!"