[thelist] Force download of pdf using coldfusion

[Keith]

> Hi all,
> 
> I searched the archives on this issue and found some good info, but
> still couldn't quite get this work.  I'd like to have a link that a
> user can click to download a pdf file to their hard drive (not open in
> browser).  I tried using the cfcontent tag, but to no avail.  Here's
> what I tried
> 
> <cfcontent type="application/pdf" file="#path##file_name#.pdf">
> 
> which causes the file to open in the browser.  If I modify the type by
> changing it to say type="text/pdf", the download prompt opens like I'd
> like, but the file name to save is the name of the cf file this code
> resides in and the file type is coldfusion.  

have no idea what syntax you'd use for Cold Fusion, but with a cgi we 
force a download by first telling the browser to ignore the content type and 
ignore tying to figure it out, then do what a Content-Disposition tells it to 
do. Using type="text/pdf" will fail to get results in IE4, see 
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q182315

$file_name = "whatever.pdf";
print "Content-Type: bad/type\n";
print "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$file_name\n\n"; 

keith