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Simple newbie question - making a pdf available

by TheAge
16 replies
Okay, it's been a year since my last failed efforts with affiliate marketing, so here I am again, starting to take action

So I've done something which I haven't before... create a free report as an incentive to to opt-in to a list.

The problem is, I don't know how to make this pdf available for download!

When I upload the file to my site, and then paste the URL of the file into my browser, I always get a 404 error message from wordpress.

I have no problem protecting the file, as I can simply compress it with a password - but how would I go about actually making the file downloadable form my site? Any ideas?

Thanks for the help guys,

Adrian
#making #newbie #pdf #question #simple
  • Profile picture of the author sridhar
    You could use just regular HTML to provide a link to your pdf.

    Like this:

    Code:
    <p>Right click on the link below and choose 'Save As'.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mysite.com/filename.pdf">Download my awesome pdf report</a></p>
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  • Profile picture of the author sridhar
    Does the pdf open/ask to be saved when you paste its URL in browser?
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  • Profile picture of the author Bish
    If you are using the PDF as a sign up give away, why dont you attatch the PDF to your autoresponder welcome (first) message. Then the new sub only gets PDF after confirming sign up.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bish
    Your welcome
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  • Profile picture of the author chandan_dutta
    The below link should not give an error:

    <a href="http://www.site.com/filename.pdf">Download report</a> - Make sure you have the file in the same path you mention. Also make sure you saved the file with proper format. I mean it is exactly .pdf. While giving the PDF file name you can try once as - "FileName.PDF" - Note that write the name within quotes.

    Regards,
    Chandan
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  • Profile picture of the author alniches
    Maybe you can try zipping up the file with winzip. And create a link direct to the zip instead.

    Also another rule of thumb is tat used only small caps without spacing or special characters for example yourfilename.pdf instead of YourFile Name.pdf

    Though most browsers will fill the empty spaces with something like word20%word.pdf or something like that, it's a common human error to misspell or use caps on where the file name is caps off...hence sometimes giving you the 404...you get the drift...

    Just my 2c
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  • Profile picture of the author sridhar
    In your WordPress dashboard, go to Media -> Add New.

    Upload the pdf file, grab the generated link and see if that works.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheAge
      Thanks sridhar, this works!

      Is this how everyone with a wordpress blogs hosts their files? The reason I ask is because it hardly seems 'safe.'

      The URL wp-content/uploads/2010/yadayada.... would seem fairly predictable and easy to 'break'.

      Surely there must be another way to upload and access the files via ftp with wordpress still installed on the server... anybody?
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  • Profile picture of the author alniches
    Hey Adrian,

    Would love to help but unfortunately my posts are to low for PMs, I think. It would help if you can post the code here and maybe I can see where I can assist. You can provide:

    Your domain name
    Your file name
    The folder where you intend to store the file in on your server

    It would also help if you can paste the code you have for that link here so that I can see where it probably went wrong.

    --Al
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  • Profile picture of the author alniches
    You can create a folder in the root directory with a random name in it, then have a link directly to it.

    You can also try the file manager in cPanel which allows you to do that. After uploading, click on the file (in file manager) which will show you the direct link to your report.

    Then in cPanel be sure to have no index for that folder as SE spiders might crawl yr server and have it appear in the search engines.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheAge
      Originally Posted by alniches View Post

      You can create a folder in the root directory with a random name in it, then have a link directly to it.

      You can also try the file manager in cPanel which allows you to do that. After uploading, click on the file (in file manager) which will show you the direct link to your report.

      Then in cPanel be sure to have no index for that folder as SE spiders might crawl yr server and have it appear in the search engines.
      Thanks for the help alniches (and everyone else who's replied)!

      In the end, it was a simple mistake on my part. I'm using a hostgator reseller account so the root directory is public_html. When uploading files with my ftp program, I've been right clicking the file and selecting 'open URL in browser'.

      This ended up with the url looking like www.mysite.com/public_html/filelol.pdf, which of course, with public_html being the root, didn't exist. Just had to delete that part from the URL and it was all good

      It's funny, even though you know when in one of these situations that it's probably a silly little thing that will be solved eventually, it still doesn't help you from becoming immensely frustrated. And because it's a silly little mistake on your part, nobody can help you because they think the problem is something completely different.

      Heh, oh well, back to working on the goals - making money and gettin' huge

      Adrian
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  • Profile picture of the author Pat Vikstrom
    How about putting the file extension .pdf at the end of the filename ... ?
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