Use this php code to open a pdf in a new tab

Question

I have managed to use the below snippet of code, to open a pdf in a browser.Instead of opening in the same page, I would like it to open in a new browser tab.

I am not using an tag. This piece of code invokes a number of actions and at the end it is supposed to display the pdf. It works fine, but i would like it to open in a new tab.

Is this possible? and if so could you please explain to me how to do so.

Im using a Magento (EE 12.02) application and its on php 5.3.

$file = $pdf_file_path;
$filename = $file_name;

    header('Content-type: application/pdf');
    header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="' . $filename . '"');
    header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
    header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
    header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');

    @readfile($file);

Algia

I'm intrigued why you think the code doesn't work for early versions of IE – Magee

good question, although im sorry to dissapoint, its just me assuming it would not work in earlier versions of I.E. please excuse me i will edit the quesion and remove that part. – Algia

I don't know enough about early versions of IE to know if they had problems with PDF docs; in general though, don't forget that because PHP is serverside, it is generally browser-independent – Magee

Answer 1

You can't do that from that request.

But you can open the link in a new browser window by adding target="_blank" to your a tag, then browsers usually will use a new tab.

Latimore

Answer 2

You can open a new tab while opening your pdf document. Example: if the code that opens your pdf document is on a page called pdfdocument.php, that is some code like so

    $pdf = file_get_contents($PDFfilename);
    header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
    header('Cache-Control: public, must-revalidate, max-age=0'); // HTTP/1.1
    header('Pragma: public');
    header('Expires: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT'); // Date in the past
    header('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s').' GMT');
    header('Content-Length: '.strlen($pdf));
    header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="'.basename($PDFfilename).'";');
    ob_clean(); 
    flush(); 
    echo $pdf;

and you have a link to the page such as http://www.example.com/pdfdocument.php, you can display it in a new tab like so <a href="http://www.example.com/pdfdocument.php" target="_blank"> click here to show pdf preview </a>

Halftruth

Answer 3

Just add exit() at the end:

$file = $pdf_file_path;
$filename = $file_name;

header('Content-type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="' . $filename . '"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');

@readfile($file);

exit();

this should just trigger the download of the file.

Pompea

Hi Merca. I just added your suggestion and unfortunately it behaves in exactly the same fashion. it opens perfectly, in the same browser tab, and I would like it to open in a new tab instead. thanks for the suggestion! – Algia

I don't think you can trigger a new tab opening with PHP. Unless you will add target=_blank on the link that downloads the PDF – Pompea

This helped me thank you I was trying to download a file on the same page without opening another tab. – Urbai

Answer 4

to open it in other browser tab, you should do it in the html that reference it: <a href="..." target="_blank">Download pdf

Beckett

Hi. Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately this happens during an action. the pdf is not available to present as a link at the time. instead I need to perform a number of operations to get the system in a state to present the pdf. So basically after a number of other actions, I would like to open a pdf in a seperate tab, and cannot do so via an <a> tag. thanks for the suggestion! – Algia

ok, thanks, but you wont be able to do it from server side, unless you generate a page, with a redirect to the original page (to keep the original one) and open a tab in the browser (all this with javascript) – Beckett

Answer 5

To open it in a new tab if you are using <a> tag you can append a target attribute like this:

<a href="your_pdf_generator_link" target="_blank" > TEXT </a>

If you have a button you can apply an inline javascript such as

<input type="button" onclick="window.open('your_pdf_generator_link','_blank')" />

Hope this helps..

Soper

Be careful, target="_blank" doesn't follow the w3c recommendations and inline javascript doesn't follow the modern javascript best practices. – Alesandrini

Answer 6

Replace "Content-Disposition: inline" with "Content-Disposition: attachment" and keep "filename" definition. That will force browser to open PDF in the new tab.

Cinquain

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