Hosts have been pasting YouTube links into their BetterSTR guidebooks for a long time, and the guidebook has quietly turned them into a player. This week that idea grew up. Vimeo works the same way now, and so do the things hosts kept asking about: the PDF house manual sitting in Google Drive, the welcome book you designed in Canva, the appliance guide in Dropbox, and the Google Maps pin for the lockbox that is impossible to describe in words.
You do not need to know what an embed code is. If you can paste a link, you are done.
What you can paste now
| Link from | Guests see | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube (normal links, Shorts and youtu.be short links) | YouTube player | Free |
| Vimeo (including unlisted videos) | Vimeo player | Free |
| Google Drive file, or a Google Doc, Sheet or Slides | Google preview | Premium |
| Dropbox share link to a PDF | PDF preview | Premium |
| OneDrive share link to a PDF or Office file | Microsoft preview | Premium |
| Canva design view link | Canva presentation | Premium |
| Google Maps share link | Interactive map with the pin | Premium |
| Any direct link ending in .pdf | PDF preview | Premium |
How it works
Open the section, click Edit Content, paste the link where you want it and press Enter. The editor underlines it, which is its way of saying it recognised a link. Save. That is the whole procedure.
When a guest opens that section they see the player or the preview in place of the link, with an Open in new tab link under any document so they can download or print it.
Maps are the one we are most pleased with
"Turn left after the second roundabout, the lockbox is on the wall behind the bins" has never worked well. Now you find the spot in the Google Maps app, tap Share, copy the link and paste it into the section. Guests get a real map with the pin, and an Open in Google Maps link that starts turn-by-turn directions from wherever they are standing. It works for the lockbox, the parking entrance, the nearest supermarket, your favourite breakfast place, anything with a pin.
It will not slow your guidebook down
We are fussy about how fast guidebooks load, because guests open them on a phone in a taxi with one bar of signal. So every embed is lazy. A section with five videos and two PDFs loads exactly as fast as a section with none; each player is only fetched when the guest actually scrolls to it. Guides with no embedded links at all ship none of the code for this feature.
Free and Premium
Video is for everyone. YouTube and Vimeo links play inline on every plan, including free accounts.
Document previews and maps are part of Premium Guidebook, alongside custom fonts and colours, the interactive area map and Ask AI. On a free plan those links still work, guests just see a normal link that opens the file or the map in a new tab. Nothing breaks and nothing is hidden. As the owner you always see the full preview in your own guidebook, with a note reminding you that guests do not yet, and you can switch off Show Editor at any time to see exactly what a guest on your plan sees.
Premium Guidebook is free for your first 2 weeks, then $2.99 per property per month, or $0.50 per reservation if you prefer to pay as you go, and it is included with BetterSTR Simple. You can turn it on from Add-ons in your members area.
Two honest notes
- The file has to be shared. A Google Drive file that is still "Restricted" shows guests a sign-in prompt instead of a preview. Set it to "Anyone with the link" before you paste it. The same goes for OneDrive and Dropbox links.
- Adobe Acrobat share links stay as links. Adobe does not allow its share pages to be shown inside another site, so an
acrobat.adobe.comlink opens in a new tab rather than previewing. If you want the inline preview, host the PDF on Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive instead.
The step-by-step version, with a short video, is in the knowledge base: How to embed videos, PDFs, maps and Canva designs in your guidebook.