I want to display the first page of document

Thanks for your updates and for the time you’ve taken to experiment with different solutions for pagination. There have been some earlier topics along similar lines, but you’re right – the search function isn’t very useful.

Here’s a post with the outline of a solution:

Need help creating pagination for attachment page!

The key point is that you need two shortcodes; one for the gallery and a separate one for the pagination controls. Both of the shortcodes must have the same data selection parameters, e.g., post_mime_type=, attachment_category= and posts_per_page=, so the gallery and pagination controls stay in synch.

Based on the example shortcode you posted, I believe the simplest combination that will work is:

[mla_gallery post_mime_type=application/pdf attachment_category=climate-change  posts_per_page=50 mla_caption="{+description+}" columns=5 mla_viewer=true]

[mla_gallery post_mime_type=application/pdf attachment_category=climate-change posts_per_page=50 mla_output="paginate_links,prev_next"]

Give that a try and let me know if the results are closer to what you want.

Thanks so much David, so this brought back the correct documents..the only thing missing now is the fact that they’re not displaying the first page of the document…

Earlier today, after I posted these, but before I got your response, I tried another shortcode combination to get the first page of the document as the document’s image..

[mla_gallery post_parent=all post_mime_type=application/pdf attachment_category=climate-change columns=4 mla_caption=”{+description+}” columns=5 mla_viewer=truemla_viewer_width=default mla_viewer_height=default mla_viewer_page=1 mla_viewer_extensions=”pdf,doc,docx,ppt,pptx” posts_per_page=50 mla_output=”paginate_links,prev_next”]

Well, what you’ve given me displays the documents like so:
view image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5mr528c1ei523my/Screenshot%202015-08-16%2019.09.15.png?dl=0

I have thumbnail support turned on though, so what do you think might be the problem?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ms8kblxyq93c60/Screenshot%202015-08-16%2019.11.02.png?dl=0

Thanks for the good news regarding your progress. Thanks as well for posting the link to your “Thumbnail Substitution Support, mla_viewer” screenshot, which contains the answer to your question. Under the “Enable thumbnail substitution” checkbox setting you can see:

Warning: MLA Viewer support may not be available:
Imagick support is not installed.

It looks like your server is not configured with the features MLA requires to provide PDF thumbnails. This is a common problem; most site hosting companies support Imagick but you often have to ask for it. You can find more information in these earlier support topics:

Problem and suggestion regarding thumbnails (from pdf) and Ghostscript

Featured Image for mla_viewer

If you cannot get your hosting company to configure your server properly you can always use the “Featured Image” support to substitute an image for the PDF icon ( use size=icon ) or document title. I understand that might not be feasible for a large or dynamic set of documents.

If you have more questions about configuring your server, post them here. I will give you whatever additional help I can to get you set up properly.

Well, I reached out to the hosting company to turn on Imagick support.

Also, can I include doc, docx and pptx, ppt files in this display:

[mla_gallery post_parent=all post_mime_type=application/pdf size=icon link=file attachment_category=climate-change posts_per_page=50 mla_caption=”{+description+}” columns=5]

[mla_gallery post_parent=all post_mime_type=application/pdf size=icon link=file attachment_category=climate-change posts_per_page=50 mla_output=”paginate_links,prev_next”]

You’re so helpful. Are you the developer of the plugin?

Good luck with your hosting company. If there’s anything else I can do to help, post an update here.

The Ghostscript/Imagick support works for PDF documents and Postscript files. I regret that I have not found an equivalent solution for any of the Microsoft formats such as doc, docx, pptx or ppt files. You can use the Featured Image support or convert these documents to PDFs.

Thanks for your kind words. Yes, I am the plugin author.