PDF creation yields blank browser window

access9

Hello,

I'm streaming a PDF to IE6 (under 2000 or XP) results in an empty browser window. My closing tags are as follows:

pdf_end_page($pdf);
pdf_close($pdf);
$buf = pdf_get_buffer($pdf);
$len = strlen($buf);
header ("content-type: application/pdf");
header ("content-length: $len");
header ("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=report.pdf");
echo $buf;
pdf_delete($pdf);

If I uncheck the option "Display PDF in Browser" in Acrobat and re-run the report, I get an open/saveas dialog box. That works and the PDF looks great, but I don't want to depend on a feature that all my users will have to change.

I've read about this particular issue elsewhere, but could not find any real answers, solutions or a worthwhile workaround (even at Adobe or PDFlib).

Has anyone else had a similar problem? What was you fix/work around?

Thanks,
BG

quicknik

are u using a https connection ?
if so make sure no caching header is send.

stk0vrfl0w

There are some issues with Internet Explorer and viewing a PDF after you have sent a request via the POST method. Here's a link explaining the issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q177/3/21.asp

Additionally, here's another thing to watch out for if you end up redirecting users to a PDF file:

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/1c1ae.htm

access9

quicknic: I am not using https, but I'll keep that in mind because parts of this application may end up going through it.

stk0vrfl0w: I've seen the M$ page your referring to, but it does not apply to my situation. From the site:
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.02, 4.0, 4.01, 5 for Windows 95
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.02, 4.0, 4.01, 5 for Windows NT 4.0).

From the adobe site, they're recommendations are not that great, but I will explore using a <meta> refresh tag.

Thanks,
bg

access9

It's not pretty, but it works:

create the pdf, specifying a filename:

pdf_open_file ($pdf, $fn);

my ending tag are:

pdf_end_page($pdf);
pdf_close($pdf);
pdf_delete($pdf);
echo "<head><meta http-equiv=\"refresh\" content=\"0; URL=../reports/$fn\"></head>";

Same effect as getting the buffer and echoing it to the browser. Yeah!

vocoder

PDFLib has a yahoogroup over at yahoogroups.com (go figure) and the creator of pdflib is usually fairly quick to respond to questions.