Posted By: Curt ()
Posted On: 01/02/2008 09:17 am
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This is an example server log mimicking a situation on my server:
(FYI: helps to view these logs by first copying them to your text editor [Notepad] for viewing)
The way I'm reading it is that the same person is accessing the file successfully on the first try, but then accessing it again over and over with partial downloads. That's what code 206 within the server log above says, right?
Why would people do that? The file is quite large (13MB). I have instructions to tell the user to do a right mouse click to “save as” instead of simply clicking the link which activates the acrobat plugin.
I know that adobe acrobat if left to activate within the browser as a plugin can hang up causing partial downloads. Also the user might think that the download is not happening fast enough within the acrobat plugin and retries the download.
I want people to download the file once and save it to their hard drives before viewing, but for some reason it seems they are not doing that. Instead they keep downloading and downloading causing lots of bandwidth usage.
Do you think that making it a zip file will reduce the number of download attempts forcing the user to save the pdf to their own computer for viewing?
For Mac users:
Can Mac users open zip files created with a WindowsXP machine. Are zip files universally able to be opened by any machine?
[ Message was edited by: Curt 01/02/2008 09:32 am ]
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Posted By: g1smd (Moderator)
Posted On: 01/02/2008 01:06 pm
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In .htaccess I use this code to force the download:
# Force Download, Not Open in Browser, for PDF and ZIP files:
AddType application/octet-stream .pdf .zip
I always comment the code as a reminder as to what it does.
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Posted By: Curt ()
Posted On: 01/02/2008 08:23 pm
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The htaccess method does open a “save as” dialog box in FF, but in MSIE it still defaults automatically to adobe acrobat reader. Even in FF, the user can opt to view it within the acrobat plugin. To ensure that doesn't happen, I need to 100% force the user to download it. The only way I know to do that is to make the download a .zip file instead.
I just want to ensure that other OS's (at least macs) can read .zip files created on a WindowsXP machine.
So repeating question...
Can Mac users open zip files created with a WindowsXP machine. Are zip files universally able to be opened by any machine?
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Posted By: g1smd (Moderator)
Posted On: 01/03/2008 05:19 am
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ZIP files are universal, Mac users have StuffIt Expander to open them with.
The content inside may not be universal (especially program runtime binary code).
Images, documents, and media files are mostly universal. There are exceptions.
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Posted By: Prowler (Moderator)
Posted On: 01/03/2008 08:30 pm
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A caveat when zipping files - most binary files would not offer any additional advantage of reduced file size in a zipped format; Secondly do not use extra high compression mode as these may use a proprietary module available to that software/OS alone.
As the file size is so big, you would be better off converting your PDF to swf format in several files each calling the other after playing. This would create chunks of files each not exceeding a couple of MB.
The above assumes that you have large images along with texts in the pdf file whose layout you don't wish to sacrifice.
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Posted By: Curt ()
Posted On: 01/04/2008 02:19 pm
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Actually I do not mind the size issue. Each individual is downloading the same pdf over and over, sometimes up to 40 times which results in high bandwidth usage. I figured that if I put the pdf into a zip file, the user would be forced to download it once, open the zip file and save the pdf to his/her hard drive. Then they would open the pdf locally on their puters.
Since zip files are pretty much universal as was mentioned, I'll go with that, not to shrink file size, but to keep users from downloading the same file repeatedly.
Thanks g1smd & Prowler for insights 
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Posted By: g1smd (Moderator)
Posted On: 01/04/2008 02:41 pm
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I use ZIP files to keep related stuff together, and to preserve the date stamps on the stuff that was ZIPped up; again, not always to compress things.
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