Question

I’m creating a button which will download an original file in a PDF format. I already have a zoom button if they want to read the PDF via the browser. But I want to offer the possibility to the user to download the file if he prefers, obviously the downloadable file will have a higher quality.

I’ve tried some basic coding but the problem is that the PDF is opened in the browser. I’m not using any CMS and won’t in a future, so the photos are uploaded simply via html code and by placing the picture in the correct file, so no database is present. This is the code I’m using in this moment:

<a href="./_img/prensa/Photo_Nexus_Guide.pdf" target="_blank"><img class="icons_infobox" src="./_img/prensa/icon_download.png" alt="Download original file" /></a>

This website needs to be cross-browser compatible so I also will ask the answer to be browser friendly.

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

Hello curious people!!!

After gathering and investigating what could be done I’ve found some answer. I will give as an answer only two options:

100% sure it downloads but not so nice for the user

-Only sure way is converting the downloadable files into .zip. Yes its not too handy/elegant but that is for sure the way the browser will be obliged to download this file. ZIP format files are always downloaded.

Depends of the users browser preferences

-Yes, you cannot be completely sure but its a very close approach. You will need to create a .htaccess file in the folder where you have your PDF for download. You would need to create this file and place it in with the following code:

SetEnvIf Request_URI "\.pdf$" requested_pdf=pdf
Header add Content-Disposition "attachment" env=requested_pdf

I hope this helps somebody. In my web it did work perfectly. It divers between browsers but it works… You just need to know that there will be a porcentage that will see it displayed in the browser and not downloaded.

Greeeeetings,

Dani