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Putting
PDF and other file formats online
I'm
frequently asked how to get the information in PDF documents online.
Short
answer:
Put the PDF file on your server and link to it from an HTML page!
Long
answer:
Web servers are capable of holding any type of file—HTML, GIF,
JPEG, PDF, DOC, WPD, PSD, etc. When we are working in an HTML (Web)
environment, it is natural for us to link to other HTML files, and
incorporate GIF and JPEG graphics into Web pages.
Simply
put, if you have two pages in your Web folder:
index.html
and
page2.html
and
you want to link from your home page (index.html) to your second
page, you can simply create some text ("click here for page
2!") and link to the second page.
If
you have a PDF file, you can put it in the same Web folder (or perhaps
a separate folder on your site for PDF documents), make text on
your index page, and link to the PDF file the same way you would
link to an HTML file. When someone clicks a PDF link in their Web
browser, the browser automatically downloads the PDF, launches Acrobat
Reader, and displays the document.
You
can also put a Word, WordPerfect, text, Photoshop, etc. document
on a Web server and link to it as above. This is an easy way to
distribute newsletters, graphics, etc., You could email the documents
to your 300 favorite correspondents, but what if there are only
ten of them who actually want the 3 MB newsletter? Well, you've
inconvenienced 280 people by making them wait for the unwanted file
to download.
Instead,
you can put the file on your Web site, send an email with the URL,
and let the recipients decide whether they want to download the
file.
Additional
tips:
-
Don't forget to delete the file when it is no longer needed--Disk
space on Web servers can be overloaded if you don't clean out
old files regularly.
- Don't
forget to upload the PDF with the HTML file. Since you always
test
your links after uploading a new or edited page (right?), you
should notice right away if you forgot to upload the PDF.
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Have
a Web
question?
Ask
Bob
Hoffmann
Bottom
window shows two HTML files and a PDF file in the site folder. Middle
window shows index.html document. The first link is to page2.html,
and the second link (with address visible in the Properties Inspector
above) is to PDF.pdf.
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