Downloading .pdf Documents

How to invoke the "Save As" command.

[pageoneresults]

There is probably a simple answer to this one but I can't locate it right at this moment. I need to invoke a "Save As" dialog for a .pdf document. How can I do this?

Unfortunately if a user clicks the link for the .pdf file, their Acrobat Reader will automatically open and allow them to view the document. In the scenario I'm in, I must invoke the "Save As" command as they need to save this .pdf document to their system.

What am I missing here?

[digitalghost]

Probably not the answer you're looking for, but I just zipped them.

[pageoneresults]

But I just zipped them.

Actually that is one of our options. This brings up another issue which is how many people are familiar with the zip interface and have a program to unzip files.

In my scenario, I have an eBook that needs to be downloaded. Unfortunately many of the purchasers of this eBook are not going to be web savvy. We felt that the .pdf option would be the best alternative as almost everyone has Acrobat Reader installed.

[digitalghost]

Not sure about the numbers, but I offered a link to a zip/unzip freebie along with instructions on how to use it. The zip proggie download link was hit infrequently compared to the pdf.zip file itself.

I know the solution isn't perfect but, and it's been awhile, but I recall that the zip option seemed to be the only viable option at the time.

[outrun]

You can use a script to use the header to force a download using Content-Disposition: attachment which forces the download, for example in php you would have something along the lines of

header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=your.pdf");
readfile("www.location.of.com/your.pdf");

And simply link to that script.

You could have the script accept variables if there is more then 1 file your dealing with.

regards
Mark