download of a pdf file

[dennismonsewicz]

Is there anyway in PHP to download or open a pdf without the use of the header function? Maybe this could be accomplished using javascript or some javascript library

[premiso]

Linking directly to that file will do it. If they have adobe, it will display it. If not it prompts them to download it.

 

As far as doing this through php, no. As the page would have to send the headers so the browser knows what is happening.

 

EDIT:

You can create the link to the file with php/HTML however

[dennismonsewicz]

I figured out my problem...

 

I used the HTML meta tag of refresh and it works like a charm

[premiso]

If that was the case then your code is coded "wrong". You should not output anything before any header calls. To avoid this, I store all output into a string, instead of echoing/printing it. Then after all the processing I echo that string, this does safe processing time (1 echo vs many) and allows for you to use the header functions.

 

What you have done is more of a band-aid to the actual problem. Figured I would just let you know that. If you want help fixing the actual problem, post the code here and I would be glad to guide you through fixing it to output properly.