Opening a PDF in browser instead of downloading it

I’m using iTextSharp to print a panel into PDF on button click. After clicking on the button, the PDF is downloading to the client’s computer. Instead of this I need the PDF to be opened in a browser instead of downloading. From the browser the user will be able to download the PDF to his PC.

I’m using the following code:

Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=" + filename + ".pdf");
Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
HtmlTextWriter hw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);
pnl_print.RenderControl(hw);

StringReader sr = new StringReader(sw.ToString());
Document pdfDoc = new Document(PageSize.A4, 10f, 10f, 100f, 0f);
HTMLWorker htmlparser = new HTMLWorker(pdfDoc);
PdfWriter.GetInstance(pdfDoc, Response.OutputStream);
pdfDoc.Open();
htmlparser.Parse(sr);
pdfDoc.Close();
Response.Write(pdfDoc);
Response.End();

sr.Close();
hw.Close();
sw.Close();

Answers:

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Method 1

Change the content-disposition to inline instead of attachment.

The second line of your snippet would then be

Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "inline;filename=" + filename + ".pdf");

See Content-Disposition:What are the differences between “inline” and “attachment”? for further details.

Method 2

Try This Code :

Action:

Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=" + filename + ".pdf");

To open in new Tab/Window:

@Html.ActionLink("view pdf", "getpdf", "somecontroller", null, 
                  new { target = "_blank" })

OR

<a href="GeneratePdf.ashx?somekey=10" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">

Method 3

You should look at the “Content-Disposition” header; for example setting “Content-Disposition” to “attachment; filename=FileName.pdf” will prompt the user (typically) with a “Save as: FileName.pdf” dialog, rather than opening it. This, however, needs to come from the request that is doing the download, so you can’t do this during a redirect. However, ASP.NET offers Response.TransmitFile for this purpose. For example (assuming you aren’t using MVC, which has other preferred options):

Response.Clear();
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=FileName.pdf");
Response.TransmitFile(Server.MapPath("~/folder/Sample.pdf"));
Response.End();

If you are try to open then the file in apicontroller Convert stream to bytesarray and then Fill the content

HttpResponseMessage result = null;
result = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
FileStream stream = File.OpenRead(path);
byte[] fileBytes = new byte[stream.Length];
stream.Read(fileBytes, 0, fileBytes.Length);
stream.Close();           
result.Content = new ByteArrayContent(fileBytes);
result.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new System.Net.Http.Headers.ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment");
result.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition.FileName = "FileName.pdf";

I think it will help you…

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