HTML Download a PDF file instead of opening them in browser when clicked

Question

I was wondering how to make a PDF file link downloadable instead of opening them in the browser  How is this done in html   I d assume it s done via javascript or something

User · Answer

you can add the following code  x000D   x000D   lt a href  http   v2 immo-facile com catalog admin-v2 product info pdf  class  btnPdf  title  pdf   target   blank  type  application pdf   gt T  l  charger la fiche du bien lt  a gt  x000D   x000D   x000D

User · Answer

With html5  it is possible now  Set a  download  attr in  element    lt a href  http   link to file  download  FileName  gt Download it  lt  a gt    Source   http   updates html5rocks com 2011 08 Downloading-resources-in-HTML5-a-download

User · Answer

If you are using HTML5  and i guess now a days everyone uses that   there is an attribute called download   ex   lt a href  somepathto pdf  download  filename  gt   here filename is optional  but if provided  it will take this name for downloaded file

User · Answer

I needed to do this for files created with dynamic names in a particular folder and served by IIS   This worked for me    In IIS  go that folder and double click HTTP Response Headers  Add a new header with the following info   Name  content-disposition  Value  attachment    from  http   forums iis net t 1175103 aspx add CustomHeaders only for certain file types

User · Answer

you will need to use a PHP script  or an other server side language for this    lt  php    We ll be outputting a PDF header  Content-type  application pdf        It will be called downloaded pdf header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename  downloaded pdf         The PDF source is in original pdf readfile  original pdf      gt    and use httacces to redirect  rewrite  to the PHP file instead of the pdf

User · Answer

You can use   Response AddHeader  Content-disposition    attachment  filename     Name     Check out this example   http   www codeproject com KB aspnet textfile aspx  This goes for ASP NET  I am sure you can find similar solutions in all other server side languages  However there s no javascript solution to the best of my knowledge

User · Answer

Without html5 attribute one can achieve this by using php   Create php file named download php with this code    lt  php ob start     file    yourPDF pdf   if  file exists  file          header  Content-Description  File Transfer        header  Content-Type  application octet-stream        header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename   basename  file        header  Content-Transfer-Encoding  binary        header  Expires  0        header  Cache-Control  must-revalidate        header  Pragma  public        header  Content-Length      filesize  file        ob clean        flush        readfile  file       exit        Now if you want to automatically start downloading pdf write this javascript    lt script gt window location    download php   lt  script gt    If you want this to work on a link  use this      lt a href  javascript window location    download php   gt      Download it   lt  a gt

User · Answer

The solution that worked best for me was the one written up by Nick on his blog  The basic idea of his solution is to use the Apache servers header mod and edit the  htaccess to include a FileMatch directive that the forces all   pdf files to act as a stream instead of an attachment  While this doesn t actually involve editing HTML  as per the original question  it doesn t require any programming per se   The first reason I preferred Nick s approach is because it allowed me to set it on a per folder basis so PDF s in one folder could still be opened in the browser while allowing others  the ones we would like users to edit and then re-upload  to be forced as downloads   I would also like to add that there is an option with PDF s to post submit fillable forms via an API to your servers  but that takes awhile to implement    The second reason was because time is a consideration  Writing a PHP file handler to force the content disposition in the header   will also take less time than an API  but still longer than Nick s approach   If you know how to turn on an Apache mod and edit the  htaccss you can get this in about 10 minutes  It requires Linux hosting  not Windows   This may not be appropriate approach for all uses as it requires high level server access to configure  As such  if you have said access it s probably because you already know how to do those two things  If not  check Nick s blog for more instructions

User · Answer

The behaviour should depend on how the browser is set up to handle various MIME types  In this case the MIME type is application pdf  If you want to force the browser to download the file you can try forcing a different MIME type on the PDF files  I recommend against this as it should be the users choice what will happen when they open a PDF file

User · Answer

As the html5 way  my previous answer  is not available in all browsers  heres another slightly hack way   This solution requires you are serving the intended file from same domain  OR has CORS permission    First download the content of the file via XMLHttpRequest Ajax   Then make a data URI by base64 encoding the content of the file and set media-type to application octet-stream   Result should look like   data application octet-stream base64 SGVsbG8sIFdvcmxkIQ 3D 3D  Now set location href   data  This will cause the browser to download the file  Unfortunately you can t set file name or extension this way  Fiddling with the media-type could yield something   See details  https   developer mozilla org en-US docs Web HTTP data URIs

User · Answer

This is only possible with setting a http response header by the server side code  Namely   Content-Disposition  attachment  filename fname ext

User · Answer

You can use download js  https   github com rndme download and http   danml com download html   If the file is in an external URL  you must make an Ajax request  but if it is not  then you can use the function   download Path  name  mime    Read their documentation for more details in the GitHub

User · Answer

When you want to direct download any image or pdf file from browser instead on opening it in new tab then in javascript you should set value to download attribute of create dynamic link      var path   your file path will be here        var save   document createElement  a          save href   filePath       save download    Your file name here        save target     blank        var event   document createEvent  Event        event initEvent  click   true  true        save dispatchEvent event       window URL    window webkitURL  revokeObjectURL save href     For new Chrome update some time event is not working  for that following code will be use    var path   your file path will be here        var save   document createElement  a          save href   filePath       save download    Your file name here        save target     blank        document body appendChild save       save click        document body removeChild save     Appending child and removing child is useful for Firefox  Internet explorer browser only  On chrome it will work without appending and removing child

User · Answer

You can t do this with HTML  It s a server-based solution  You have to stream the file so that the browser than triggers the save dialog   I d advise not doing this  How a user interacts with a PDF should be left up to the user    UPDATE  2014    So   this answer still gets plenty of downvotes  I assume part of that is that this was answered 4 years ago and as Sarim points out  there is now the HTML 5 download attribute that can handle this    I agree  and think Sarim s answer is good  it probably should be the chosen answer if the OP ever returns   However  this answer is still the reliable way to handle it  as Yigit Yener s answer points out and--oddly--people agree with   While the download attribute has gained support  it s still spotty   http   caniuse com  feat download

[javascript] (HTML) Download a PDF file instead of opening them in browser when clicked

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