jquery: how to force a pdf download automatically ?

Question

Is there any way to force the user's download-manager to start a download for .PDF instead of showing the .PDF in a new window/tab ? I've seen this function already several times, hope somebody knows a solution

Answer 1

You need to send HTTP headers ( Content-disposition ) in order to do this. You cannot do this on the client side.

Answer 2

Set Content-Disposition in your HttpResponse header:

Content-Disposition = 'attachment; filename=filename.pdf'

Answer 3

    <?php
    // required for IE, otherwise Content-disposition is ignored   
     if(ini_get('zlib.output_compression'))
      ini_set('zlib.output_compression', 'Off');
    }
$reader = fopen($filename, "r");
$contents = fread($reader, filesize($filename));
    header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
    header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($filename));
    header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
    header('Expires: 0');
    header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
    header('Pragma: public');
    header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($filename));
    ob_end_clean();
    echo $contents;

Answer 4

This needs to be done in the server side. You can't do this at the client side.

How to do it depends on the server side language in question.

PHP:

header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filename . '"');

Java:

response.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + filename + "\"");

.NET:

Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + filename + "\"");

If there's no means of any server side code which streams the PDF file, then you need to configure it at webserver level. In for example Apache HTTPD, you can place/expand a .htaccess file in the PDF folder's root with the following entry:

<Files *.pdf>
    Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</Files>

or configure it globally in httpd.conf file. Similar approach exist for IIS with web.config file.

Answer 5

Hi,

I'm looking for the web.config (IIS) equivalent for this .htaccess:

<Files *.pdf>
    Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</Files>

Somebody can help me? Thanks