How do I force files to open in the browser instead of downloading PDF

Question

Is there a way to force PDF files to open in the browser when the option  Display PDF in browser  is unchecked   I tried using the embed tag and an iframe  but it only works when that option is checked   What can I do

User · Answer

The correct type is application pdf for PDF  not application force-download  This looks like a hack for some legacy browsers  Always use the correct mimetype if you can   If you have control over the server code    Forced download prompt  use header  Content-Disposition    attachment  filename myfilename myextension    Browser tries to open it  use header  Content-Disposition    inline  filename myfilename myextension      No control over the server code    Use the HTML5 download attribute  It uses the custom filename specified on the view side    NOTE  I prefer setting the filename on the server side as you may have more information and can use common code

User · Answer

Here is another method of forcing a file to view in the browser in PHP    extension   pathinfo  file name  PATHINFO EXTENSION    url    uploads    file name          echo   lt html gt                    header  Content-Type  application    extension    lt br gt                    header  Content-Disposition  inline  filename     file name        lt br gt                      lt body gt                      lt object   style  overflow  hidden  height  100                width  100   position  absolute   height  100   width  100   data     url    type  application    extension    gt                       lt embed src     url    type  application    extension      gt                lt  object gt                  lt  body gt                   lt  html gt

User · Answer

Either use   lt embed src  file pdf    gt   if embedding is an option or my new plugin  PIFF  https   github com terrasoftlabs piff

User · Answer

You can do this in the following way    lt a href  path to PDF file  gt Open PDF lt  a gt    If the PDF file is inside some folder and that folder doesn t have permission to access files in that folder directly then you have to bypass some file access restrictions using  htaccess file setting by this way    lt FilesMatch       jpe g JPE G gif GIF png PNG swf SWF pdf PDF     gt      Order Allow Deny     Allow from all  lt  FilesMatch gt    But now allow just certain necessary files   I have used this code and it worked perfectly

User · Answer

If you have Apache add this to the  htaccess file    lt FilesMatch      i pdf    gt      ForceType application octet-stream     Header set Content-Disposition attachment  lt  FilesMatch gt

User · Answer

Just open Adobe Reader  menu   Edit   Preferences   Internet  then change to browser mode or for detailed instructions on different browsers try Display PDF in browser   Acrobat  Acrobat Reader

User · Answer

This is for ASP NET MVC  In your cshtml page    lt section gt       lt h4 gt  lt a href   Url Action  Download    Document   new   id    Model GUID     gt  lt i class  fa fa-download  gt  lt  i gt   Model Name lt  a gt  lt  h4 gt       lt object data   Url Action  View    Document   new   id    Model GUID     type  application pdf  width  100   height  800  class  col-md-12  gt           lt h2 gt Your browser does not support viewing PDFs  click on the link above to download the document  lt  h2 gt       lt  object gt   lt  section gt    In your controller   public ActionResult Download Guid id                if  id    Guid Empty              return null           var model   GetModel id            return File model FilePath   application pdf   model FileName          public FileStreamResult View Guid id                if  id    Guid Empty              return null           var model   GetModel id            FileStream fs   new FileStream model FilePath  FileMode Open  FileAccess Read            return File fs   application pdf

User · Answer

Open downloads php from rootfile   Then go to line 186 and change it to the following           if preg match     jpg   gif   png   jpeg i    name                 mime   getimagesize  download location               if  empty  mime                     header  Content-Type    mime  mime                                       elseif preg match     pdf i    name                header  Content-Type  application force-download                header  Content-type  application pdf                header  Content-Disposition  inline  filename      name                            else              header  Content-Type  application force-download                header  Content-type  application octet-stream                header  Content-Disposition  attachment  filename      name

User · Answer

Oops  there were typing errors in my previous post       header  Content-Type  application force-download        header  Content-type  application pdf        header  Content-Disposition  inline  filename      name           If you don t want the browser to prompt the user then use  inline  for the third string instead of  attachment    Inline works very well  The PDF display immediately without asking the user to click on Open   I ve used  attachment  and this will prompt the user for Open  Save  I ve tried to change the browser setting nut it doesn t prevent the prompt

User · Answer

While the following works well on firefox  it DOES NOT work on chrome and mobile browsers   Content-Type  application pdf Content-Disposition  inline  filename  filename pdf    To fix the chrome  amp  mobile browsers error  do the following    Store your files on a directory in your project Use the google PDF Viewer   Google PDF Viewer can be used as so    lt iframe src  http   docs google com gview url http   example com path to my directory pdffile pdf amp embedded true  frameborder  0  gt  lt  iframe gt

User · Answer

If you are using HTML5  and I guess nowadays everyone uses that   there is an attribute called download   For example    lt a href  somepathto pdf  download  filename  gt    Here filename is optional  but if provided  it will take this name for the downloaded file

User · Answer

To indicate to the browser that the file should be viewed in the browser  the HTTP response should include these headers   Content-Type  application pdf Content-Disposition  inline  filename  filename pdf    To have the file downloaded rather than viewed   Content-Type  application pdf Content-Disposition  attachment  filename  filename pdf    The quotes around the filename are required if the filename contains special characters such as filename 1  pdf which may otherwise break the browser s ability to handle the response   How you set the HTTP response headers will depend on your HTTP server  or  if you are generating the PDF response from server-side code  your server-side programming language

User · Answer

If you link to a  PDF it will open in the browser  If the box is unchecked it should link to a  zip to force the download   If a  zip is not an option  then use headers in PHP to force the download  header  Content-Type  application force-download     header  Content-Description  File Transfer

[pdf] How do I force files to open in the browser instead of downloading (PDF)?

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