Question

I’ve seen many articles about dragging files INTO a browser, but none about dragging files FROM the browser to a windows application or the desktop/windows-explorer.

I’m looking for a cross-browser solution but IE8 is our main browser.

If I create a link in a web page and then drag that link from the page into Microsoft Word, it inserts a link. However, if that link is pointing at a PDF document, I would like it to embed the PDF doc inside the Word doc, as if I’d dragged it from Windows Explorer, into MS Word.

Is that possible?

I’ve even tried pointing the link at an ASP page which returns “application/pdf” data but I still just get a link in my word doc so I suspect that links are the wrong way to go.

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

I suspect you’ll find that it is indeed not possible. The behavior upon drop is determined by the “receiving” application, not the “sending” application. As you point out, Word creates links to things that are dropped on it. The browser doesn’t have any control over that.