I have a web page that has links to a php script that sends pdf files to the browser when clicked.
The links are like this:
The files sent are shown embedded in the browser, which is what I want.

The problem is: the title of the browser window or tab in which the pdf file is opened is "getfile.php?id=1201234"), and not the actual file name of the pdf file.

Is it possible to send the file by a php script in a way that the window/tab title becomes the filename and not the link by which it has been accessed?

1 members found this post helpful.

Very nice solution. Thanks for posting it.

Thank you, it is really a nice solution, but, since a pdf is not html content, it might not work.

I think I have tried that the first time, and failed with both firefox and ie. Just to be sure, I will recheck it tommorrow.

I think, however, that I have just figured out an other solution using apache mod_rewrite to trick the browser (or the embedded acrobat reader?):

Links should be formed like:
"/files/<file id>/<filename>.pdf"
and the browsers (or acrobat reader?) would be happy to put <filename>.pdf into the window title.

The php script would not be that happy with that request, actually, it would not even see it, but here Apache could help by rewriting it to:
"/getdoc.php?id=<file id>"
and the php script would now be glad to serve the file based on the file id.

This rewrite rule might do the trick, I suppose:
"RewriteRule ^/files/([^/]+)/[^/]+.pdf$ /getdoc.php?id=$1"

I know, it is a really ugly solution, but it might work. I will also try it tommorrow.

It looks like browsers do not respect beauty (or the sense of beauty of "gurus"), because the "<a ... title=..>" thingy does not work .

However, the rewrite thingy works like a charm.

Thank you for your attention.

Edit:
Well, actually, it turned out that there is much room for improvement.
I have just noticed that $_SERVER['REMOTE_USER'], $_SERVER['AUTH_USER'], $_SERVER['LOGIN_USER'] and such environment variables are sometimes all empty in the getdoc php script when using mod_rewrite. For some pdf's they are empty, for others, they are not. And I cannot figure out what makes the difference.
So environment variable $_SERVER['SUCKING_DEVELOPER'] is presently filled with my name, as a consequence of not being able to use ntlm_auth along with mod_rewrite reliably.

Hmm, html/browser wise the title= thing should've worked; but what does and what is on computers...