Force to download

Rather than attempting to finish a page PDF once, readers often break them down and digest each small part at a time. To avoid going online every time viewing that file, they can download it to their device and open it anywhere at any time. Another case is selling digital products such as PDF ebooks or course videos. Forcing downloads makes sure customers receive what they pay for. Zip files refer to a combination of one or more files that are compressed into a single file for easier transportation and compression.

All you need to do is group your desired files into a folder on your device. You can send this zip file to users via emails or social platforms. Recipients simply click on the file and download it in seconds. They have to double click and expand it to access all media files. You should use the following code and add it to the. In case you want users to click and download multiple different files, just replace the? Follow these 5 straightforward steps:.

If you run a website where you offer downloadable content to your visitors this tutorial will help you ensure that the item is always saved to their computer.

Without putting steps in place to force a file to download, some browsers will only display the item rather than download it. While simply showing the downloadable item such as an image and allowing the customer to download it at their pleasure is fine for some websites, other times it makes sense for the item to be directly downloaded to the visitors computer.

In this tutorial we will outline how you can always force a file to download rather than showing it in the visitors browser. If you are offering a large item, even if this is a pdf it is recommended to force this download. Your visitor may want to read this later on so having it saved to their downloads file can allow them to do this. If your customer has paid money to purchase the download, then forcing the download can ensure that they receive what they have paid for. While viewing the download within the browser can often work for images, your user may forget to save it prior to exiting.

This means that they no longer have a copy of what they purchased. If you wish for all your downloadable content to be automatically saved on your visitors computer complete one of the following options depending on your developer knowledge and website needs :.

If for whatever reason, you cannot add the download attribute in the case that you cannot directly edit the HTML of your web page , you can optionally compress the file using zip, and instruct the user to download the zip file. You can alternatively explain to the user that they should right click on the link and select download.

If you have no other alternatives to force the file to download, you can host it on a file hosting service such as Google Docs. The most common file types that are affected by this behavior are PDF files and images. The code below will tell the browser to prompt the user to save the file.

This link does not have the download attribute. This link has the download attribute.