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server-side configuration Open to View PDFs in browser not download them

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questorfla:
Thanks Wraith.  Here is a site that I found the example I described an I am trying to contact whoever hosts this setup so they can explain to me how to institute it on my servers.  So far i have not gotten past the secretary who answers the phone at the business :(  Maybe it you see what it does, this will look familiar to you. Click HERE

I hope i did that properly as I do not normally post links.

On that page if you click any of the "Download Buttons" it opens a viewer of some kind , it does not automatically download anything
in that viewer, you DO have options of saving, printing etc.  I noticed that the link that opens when you click Download is not direct to the pdf file itself.  I am now even seeing that if the file is rather large you can see that it is being opened by what is called WORD, i am not sure if it is an APP or the full program nor whether it is on my system or on the HOST system. 
 
I am using CHROME as a browser with no special add ons.   My windows 10 system is set to use FOXIT READER as the default for PDF file extensions  This site does exactly what I need my site to do as far as handling pdf files as I cannot ask eash user to make changes to their default configurations.


Perhaps that site has WORD set to be the default viewer for PDF files or some other?   If I choose to open a PDF file using WORD on my own system locally I get various warnings about "may not create a 100% accurate view of the item displayed" and other disclaimers.  But on this site, clicking download apparently causes the document to either open in Word or a WORD APP either at their end or go directly into Word at my end.

While this does leave open the 'OPTION' of saving, printing etc, it would put an end to the Automatic downloading of every pdf when viewed.

wraith808:
On my browser, it downloads the PDF and opens it in the Adobe reader plugin.  The URL's are even to the files themselves, i.e. http://www.regionalutilities.net/documents/2014%20Annual%20Drinking%20Water%20Quality%20Report.pdf

That's the first link on that page.

I'm also using Chrome with no special extensions to handle anything.

questorfla:
That IS odd that it would react differently on different systems using the same browser
now I more than ever want to blame Windows 10.  There was always a sort of "default program" for various file types but Windows 10 has taken that to a whole new level.
I may try to send attach a screenshot here.
In any event, your method would work as well or better.  How hard would it be to use that on Pre-existing Apache websites?  Is it an application or a method of display and of course, where can i buy it?  At least with yours, i can see how i could BLOCK downloads.  the other looks to me like it opens in some kind of Apache ...  or maybe it is Fox-it Viewer since Fox-it is my default for opening PDF files on that system.  Shows how seldom i ever use it!  I like yours Better

wraith808:
I guess the answer to that question depends on what the powers that be are thinking.  Why do they want to restrict downloading?  Is it because of printing and/or copy and paste?  If so, it seems that it would be better to alter the PDF to restrict those.

Otherwise, what language are you using?  I looked for something you can use from .NET, and came up empty.  That might be a custom solution on scribd.

questorfla:
It's like this:
The downloaders are people on a committee who are discussing candidates for a position to be filled at a company.  Because the documents they are reading are only resumes and similar, there isn't much there which could not be obtained from various public resources. 
But!
IF someone were to have access to all the resumes that had been read by a specific committee or member of one they would know who the specific applicants are and could also make a pretty good guess at how far along specific applicants might be in the deliberation process.  Since every document involved is now copied to the downloads folder of every committee member's laptop it just makes a very neat package for anyone who wanted to be underhanded about it.

As this is a temporary committee formed for only this one purpose, they are most likely using laptops drawn from a company "equipment pool" While they "could" just be told be told to make new rules about completely cleaning all files and folders from each laptop after every meeting anyway (something I would have advised doing anyway as a matter of course)  It isn't how things have been done before.  And I get the non-envious job of having to explain WHY things have changed to people who barely understand how things work in the first place as well as defend the methods which once worked one way but now work another while trying to explain that I have no control over it anyway. :(

In my eyes, if it matters this much they should be doing it altogether differently anyway.  BUT.  That decision is above my paygrade.  I only have to find a way to prevent the files from being automatically downloaded to the "downloads folder" while keeping the names and text in such an obvious and easy to access form.   Even normal people know to look for downloaded files in the downloads folder.  Well... most do anyway.

But few if any would dream that the music they are listening to on Pandora could easily be captured and saved to make a "bootleg" recording to keep if they only knew where to find the stored data stream and convert it back to an mp3 format.  So as long as those files went to that Unnamed temporary data storage compartment, all was well in the Universe.  I need to put them back into the "dark-hole" so to speak.


 

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