Download unprotected files

[Eddy_P]

On one of my pages in html, sometimes the normal link <a href="booktitle.pdf">Book Title</a> does not work.

I could ask people to right click, then 'save as' or 'save target as' - but this might confuse them.

What part of the secure download script should (could ?) I utilize to have the "Save" Box appear when the above link is clicked upon so the file has to be saved before it is opened ?

Thanks,
E.P.

[zubrag]

You could use this downloader

It has allowed extensions list. Here is what should force save dialog for pdf.

$allowed_ext = array (
  'pdf' => 'application/octet-stream'
);

[Eddy_P]

Do I need the whole script just to make the 'save box' appear, or can it be modified ?

The pdf files do not need to be in a secure directory, nor the URL address hidden.

[zubrag]

Yes, whole script. But some browsers will still try to open pdf instead of saving it to disk. It depends on how browser is set up.

I believe Apache server can also be tuned to force save dialog for pdf (need mod_rewrite module). But i have no such experience.

[recoding]

It can be browser specific, e.g. here at college if i view a file on the shared area in Firefox, it kindly downloads it for me, if i view in IE, it views it as a webpage [pointless].
But it can be [as zubrag said] server specific, so the server gets the browser to download it not try and view [trick the browser into thinking its just a txt file it cant view]