On a website that generates PDF reports, Internet Explorer 11 tries to open the PDF file with the associated PDF viewer on my system instead of just saving the downloaded file. I want Internet Explorer to download the PDF file straight to disk. I do not want the PDF file opened in any PDF viewer nor in IE itself.
Windows – How to force Internet Explorer to download PDF files instead of trying to open them
internet-explorer-11pdfwindows 7
Related Solutions
I think that the problem sometimes occurs when the web server you are downloading the PDF from does not serve the PDF with the correct MIME type.
When the web server serves a PDF with the correct MIME type, Chrome previews it. When the web server serves a PDF with the incorrect or generic MIME type (application/octet-stream), Chrome downloads it.
If the server returns a Content-Type of text/html Chrome will display/open the PDF directly in the browser. However, if the server returns a Content-Type of application/pdf then the browser will prompt the user to save/download the PDF.
The issue may have to do with the way files are served by web servers.
Some servers may include Content-Disposition: attachment header in their response leading to Chrome downloading the file when you click on the download link while others may skip that header in their response, leaving the decision of whether to open or download the file up to Chrome.
More info on this here:
Force to open “Save As…” popup open at text link click for pdf in HTML
Do I need Content-Type: application/octet-stream for file download?
The following solution will download all PDF files including embedded files meant to be viewed within Chrome like the one's here and here. However, it won't work for sites using PDF.js to display embedded PDF files, like this online demo.
Adding or modifying Content-Disposition headers on the fly to Content-Disposition: attachment for MIME type application/pdf should help force Google Chrome to download all PDF files.
You can achieve this with the Modify Content-Type extension.
- Install the extension and click on the extension icon in the toolbar and select Options
- Click on Add Rule and add the following rule:
Name: Download PDFs URL Filter: .* Original Type: application/pdf Replacement Type: application/pdf Disposition: attachment
- Click Save Rule
- Refresh the page containing the PDF links so that the extension is loaded for that that page
Best Answer
To change the default PDF open behavior when using a web browser:
In Adobe Acrobat\Reader Choose Edit—>Preferences Select the Internet category from the list on the left To display the PDF in the browser, check "Display in browser" To open PDFs from the web directly in Acrobat, uncheck "Display in browser