PDF files, part II: How does IE know?

[rpage at okway.okstate.edu]

   Hi! Two things:
   
      1) Have you checked to make sure that your machines running IE3x have
         version 3.01 of Acrobat Reader installed?
   
      2) Did you install Acrobat Reader (v3.01) after installing IE? If not,
         the plug-in was not installed correctly. Reinstalling should fix it
         (hopefully!?!).
   
   --Richard
   
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    Richard M. Page                         | Voice      (405) 744-5347
    Head, Library Systems Department        | Fax        (405) 744-7579
    224A Library, Oklahoma State University | 
    Stillwater, OK 74078-1070               | E-Mail: rpage at okway.okstate.edu
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______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: PDF files, part II: How does IE know? 
Author:  <Rich.Harrington at co.hennepin.mn.us> at SMTP
Date:    7/2/98 12:43 PM
   
Hi, more on the wackiness of linking to PDF files.
   
   I told you all before how our machines with IE4 -- but only some of our
IE3.x machines -- were able to deal with a link to a PDF file even if the 
target didn't have a .pdf extension (see < 
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/index.html >.  None of the PDF links 
there have a .pdf extension).
   
   If you are running 95 or NT, right click on any of the links that say
"PDF version."  What do you see?  Does your browser know at this point the 
document is a PDF document?  Some of our IE3.x machines don't know, and 
they aren't able to correctly load Acrobat Reader and display the document. 
Our IE4 machines don't know, but are able to load Acrobat Reader anyway, 
and display the document once the link has been clicked.  Others of our 
IE3.x machines somehow *do* know at that point, just by right-clicking on 
the link, that the target is a PDF file, even though it does not have a 
.pdf extension.  How do they know?  Is there an attribute in the HTML, or 
is it linking to the document to check its properties?
   
   Perhaps you are thinking that I am fixating a little too much on this
little problem, and perhaps you are right.  But I do hope to gain some 
understanding of how the browser works, so if any of you have some insight, 
I'd sure be interested to hear it.
   
Thanks,
Rich Harrington
rich.harrington at co.hennepin.mn.us
Hennepin County Law Library
Minneapolis, MN