How do I setup download links for pdf files directly?

Question

I want to add a pdf file via a file field on a content type, I want to display a download link, and if the user clicks save it to your computer, as in a normal download.

Answer 1

Try the DownloadFile module. In your content type change the field display formatter to download file or whatever suits your need.

Answer 2

If you have access to it, placing the following snippet in your site's .htaccess file will force download in many recent browsers, but Clive is correct: this won't work for everybody (due to user preferences and also not all devices and browsers obey this setting). The following syntax is for apache on LINUX, you may have to tweak it for a windows environment. I wish I knew how to get this to work on iPhones (if anybody knows - do tell!). I'm sure there is a much more elegant way to cover upper and lower case file extensions (hey - I'm making this up as I go along ; )

<FilesMatch "\.(mov|mp3|jpg|pdf|MOV|MP3|JPG|PDF)$">
  ForceType application/octet-stream
  Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</FilesMatch>

Answer 3

Enable "File" module (it's provided by Drupal distr). Then go to content types (in Structure), add new content type or select on of exists.

After saving content type see "manage fields". Add new field (fill label and field name), select Type of this = File, click Save. Then in extensions fill PDF, and enter place of storing.

Now try create this content type, PDF file uploading will available and after saving you can see direct link to download it, if you don't see it, visit content type and check "Manage display" tab.

Taken from source https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7708452/how-do-i-setup-download-links-for-pdf-files

and also if you want to force the user to download only, then use this module File Force Download

File Force Download can be used to force the user's web browser to download the file to disk instead of displaying it in the browser window.

Web browsers today are pre-configured to render various types of media directly, such as text files, various image, video and audio formats, PDF documents, and Flash movies. While it is still possible to save such files afterwards by right-clicking on them and selecting "Save As..", it is sometimes desirable to just offer the file for download in the first place. File Force Download solves this issue by supplying a file with certain HTTP headers which instruct the web browser to download the file to the user's disk instead of displaying it in a browser window.

Answer 4

Note: i couldn't use File Force Download module since it only works off of fields... I had files uploaded with IMCE and I had regular links in content Body to those private files... So i had to use setting the header via apache's side via the httpd.conf or .htaccess with above answers ... You can do this with a module as well which is what I ended up going with:

<?php
function mymodule_mimetype_override_file_mimetype_mapping_alter(&$mapping) {  
  $new_mime_type = 'application/octet-stream'; //already in mimetypes so below array addition wont happen, but put here in case you want to add your own type

  if ( !in_array($new_mime_type, $mapping['mimetypes'])) {
    $mapping['mimetypes'][] = $new_mime_type; //mapping['mimetypes']['octetstream']
  }
  $index = array_search($new_mime_type, $mapping['mimetypes']);
  $mapping['extensions']['pdf'] = 15; //manually setting for now, could have used $index; //15 is octet-stream, 18 is pdf
}

//also added this for my HTTPS site since IE8 couldnt download/display any files if it doesn't have certain cache headers for ssl websites ... heh, booooooo
function mymodule_override_file_download($filepath) {
  header("Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate"); //may have to set Pragma too but not in my case
}