Question

I have a php script that generates a pdf report. When we go to save the pdf document, the filename that Acrobat suggests is report_pdf, since the php script is named report_pdf.php. I would like to dynamically name the pdf file, so I don’t have to type the appropriate name for the report each time that I save it.

Asking on a news group, someone suggested this, where filename="July Report.pdf" is the intended name of the report

<?
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-disposition: filename="July Report.pdf"');

But it doesn’t work. Am I doing it wrong, or will this work at all? Is this a job for mod_rewrite?

---

So I’ve tried both

header('Content-disposition: inline; filename="July Report.pdf"');

and

header('Content-disposition: attachment; filename="July Report.pdf"');

( not at the same time ) and neither work for me. Is this a problem with my web host? For this url, here’s my code:

<?
header('Content-disposition: inline; filename="July Report.pdf"');

// requires the R&OS pdf class
require_once('class.ezpdf.php');
require_once('class.pdf.php');

// make a new pdf object
$pdf = new Cpdf();
// select the font
$pdf->selectFont('./fonts/Helvetica');
$pdf->addText(30,400,30,'Hello World');
$pdf->stream();

?>

Answer 1

Try:

header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="July Report.pdf"');

or

header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="July Report.pdf"');

Another option would be to use the $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] to pass your “July Report.pdf” – an example link might be:

<a href="report_pdf.php/July%20Report.pdf?month=07">

That file should default to saving as “July Report.pdf” – and should behave exactly like your old php script did, just change the code that produces the link to the pdf.