[coachdan32]

What is invloved in setting a page up that will allow a visitor to download a file from your site? I will be just a simple .doc, .xls, or .mdb file.

[rankbeginner]

1) Upload the file to your web space: let's say it's named football.doc
2) Know the full pathname of the file: which might be http://www.yoursitename.com/football.doc
3) on a web page, make a link to that file like this:
<a href="http://www.yoursitename.com/football.doc">Download the file football.doc</a>

That should do it. When the user clicks on the file it will download. ... You might want to zip the file first -- compress it -- and then put up that zipped file for downloading. That saves time for your downloaders, and saves bandwidth space (and possibly cost) for you.

[coachdan32]

Thanks. I will give it a go.

[coachdan32]

I tried this, but all that happened was it opened the document in my browser window. I am wanting it to pop up a file download dialog box so they can download it to their hard-drive. How do I set that up?

[coachdan32]

bump

[Gibble]

Originally Posted by coachdan32

I tried this, but all that happened was it opened the document in my browser window. I am wanting it to pop up a file download dialog box so they can download it to their hard-drive. How do I set that up?

All they have to do is right click on the link and select "save link as"

[coachdan32]

You know that and I know that, but the visitors for my site are pretty novice computer-users and I am trying to keep from having to take up space on the page to put directions for download. Surely there is another way.

[Gibble]

You can edit the .htaccess file (or create it if it doesn't exist) to tell the webserver, to not tell the browser what type of file it is being sent, this 'should' make the save as dialog appear.

Create a file called ".htaccess" with the following lines

PHP Code:

<FilesMatch "\.(doc)$" >
 ForceType application/octet-stream
 </FilesMatch> 


This should make the save as dialog appear for all doc files

[coachdan32]

Let me make sure I understand. Create a file with the above code (in Notepad?) and name it .htaccess. When I do that it wants to add .txt to it and if I delete the extension it added, it turns to that unrecognized Windows file logo. So exactly how should I do it? I know nothing about PHP (I use ASP/vbscript) and will it work in the ASP/vbscript world? That is exactly what I want to do though.

[Gibble]

Yep, exactly that, if your webhost supports .htaccess files
(it may, or may not...depending on where your site is hosted.)

Where is your site hosted? I can check if you'd like.

[coachdan32]

It is through a host named Robowebsites, but I believe the sites actually sit on webhosting4life's servers.

[Gibble]

Then it more than likely supports .htaccess files.

You should be good to go with what I suggested.

[coachdan32]

Thanks, I'll give a shot tonight and post back with results.

[Rockn]

IIS doesn't support .htaccess
There is a free utility for IIS that does most of the same stuff the .htaccess file does.
http://www.iistoolshed.com/