Force pdf file download upon submit

Question

I have a form that submits to a php script which I would like to do the following:

1. capture the user input via POST (done)
2. send me an email with the user's details (done)
3. start downloading a PDF from the same directory as the .php file (test.pdf) - HELP!

EDIT: FYI, I am calling the php via jquery:

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: php_url,
    data: $('#popForm').serialize(),
            success: function(){
           window.location.href = 'downloadpdf.php?file=test.pdf';
        }
    })

Here is the php code that captures the user input via POST and sends it to me via email. I just need a section that does #3, above.

<?php

$email_PGi = "me@mail.com";
$email_subject = "some email subject";


$firstname = $_POST['firstname']; 
$lastname = $_POST['lastname']; 

$email_message = "The following is a new message received via the website:\n\n";

function clean_string($string) {
  $bad = array("content-type","bcc:","to:","cc:","href");
  return str_replace($bad,"",$string);
}

$email_message .= "First Name: ".clean_string($firstname)."\n";
$email_message .= "Last Name: ".clean_string($lastname)."\n";


// create email headers
$headers = 'From: '.$biz_email."\r\n".
'Reply-To: '.$biz_email."\r\n" .
'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

@mail($email_PGi, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers);


?>

downloadpdf.php

<?php

$file = $_GET['file'];
header('Content-Type: Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . basename($file) . '"');
header('Content-Length: ' . $file);
readfile($filename);
die();

?>

Answer 1

It's because the response (with correct headers) is being received by the ajax request, which isn't going to output to the user. You can try one of three things:

1. Don't use ajax for this.
2. Use File API and have the ajax callback handle the file data (major pain).
3. Have the ajax callback set the window.location value to a script that only uses the Content-Disposition: attachment header so that the browser starts to "redirect" but instead downloads the file as indicated by the header.

Also, possible duplicate of Download a file by jQuery.Ajax

Answer 2

Use http://php.net/manual/en/function.file-get-contents.php to send the data along with your headers, not readfile.

Answer 3

Use:

define('PDF_FILE', 'test.pdf');

header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=" . basename(PDF_FILE));
header('Expires: 0');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize(PDF_FILE));

ob_clean();
flush();

readfile(PDF_FILE);

Answer 4

Have you tried opening a window that forces the download? This is probably not the best nor cleanest solution, but it'll work.

JQuery:

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: php_url,
    data: $('#popForm').serialize(),
    success: function()
    {
       window.location.href = 'downloadpdf.php?file=test.pdf';
    }
});

downloadpdf.php?file=test.pdf

$file = $_GET['file'];
header('Content-Type: Content-Type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . basename($file) . '"');
header('Content-Length: ' . $file);
readfile($filename);
die();

I'm not sure if you plan on passing the filename to the callback later on.