Comments on: Don’t Link to PDF Files Unless You Make Clear That it’s a PDF Download!

By: hallie

hallie — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:36:18 +0000

I think you’re allowed to look in your statusbar of your browser and see what it is that you’re actually clicking ;o)

Sure as a developer you should make things as clear as possible - but please don’t remove all responsibility from the users - they have to keep thinking for themselves … or we’ll have a mayhem of ppl who won’t take any responsibilities for the links they clicked and the cr*p they got on their computer ;o)

By: Raja Sekharan

Raja Sekharan — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:06:09 +0000

I don’t agree that it’s abuse at all. If that is the logic then linking to EXE files, linking to image files and documents will all be abuse too. Heck should I not link to HTML files either?

But if you are using firefox, use this addon that automatically prompts you for a save location when you click on pdf links:

http://tinyurl.com/yp25×3

Raja Sekharan

By: Hal

Hal — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:45:24 +0000

Count me in agreement, although I never set any browser to automatically download anything without asking me what I want to do. I do wish more people would read this…although the ones who do this obviously don’t care.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:12:00 +0000

Some browsers will ask you what you want to do with a PDF file if you don’t have any default action selected.

Myself I just use the NoScript extension for Firefox. In addition to the script protection it does, it asks each time if you want to allow the PDF download (although you can change this).

By: Dr.Mani

Dr.Mani — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:21:18 +0000

Guilty as changed - sometimes :-)

On my browser(s), when I click on a link to a PDF document, I get asked whether I want to open the PDF file to view in a window, or download to my hard drive.

Unless it is a huge file, where the download might take ages, I haven’t considered it a major hassle, much less a ‘disrespect’ shown me by the website creator, though I can see your viewpoint on this.

Just my 2 cents :-)

All success
Dr.Mani

By: bigjohn756

bigjohn756 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:38:56 +0000

I agree, an unannounced PDF download is very irritating. On the other hand, most of the sites that I go to announce that you will be getting a PDF file if you click the link…most, not all. It should be all because, unless you have streamlined your Adobe PDF reader’s loading, it can take quite a while for the reader to load and show you the file.