[WEB4LIB] .doc --> .pdf; launching Acrobat from NNav.

[Thomas Dowling]

>
>
> It's been a long time since I've tried this so I'm probably forgetting
> something ...
>
>
> Objective:  to convert .doc files (Word2000) to .pdf by "printing" to
> PDFWriter from Word and saving locally.
>
>
> Problem:  When accessing these documents through the web, NNav. appears
to
> want to decode the .pdf's itself.  It displays a blank window and the
> source code is a mess.  (IE has no problems whatsoever.)  On my first
pass,
> NNav. wouldn't even launch Acrobat.  Now it seems to -- I get the logo
> splash -- but Acrobat is nowhere to be seen in the task bar or elsewhere
> (as if it didn't really launch).
>
> I've tested this on multiple machines (Windows) so I'm guessing it isn't
> the local browser/plug-in configuration.
>
> Help?
>
> Any and all suggestions are most welcome.
>

This is the classic symptom of a server that's sending the wrong MIME
type.  If you are running Apache, make sure that its copy of mime.types
includes:

  application/pdf                 pdf

I use "lynx -mime_header [URL] > foo.txt" to get a complete set of the
MIME headers a server sends--another reason why all web masters should
have lynx available.

If in fact your server is sending these files as "text/plain", then
Netscape is in the right, and IE is showing one of its most glaring
shortcomings: it happily honors perceived file extensions over
server-supplied MIME types when it decides the two are in conflict.
That's a no-no as per the HTTPD spec.


Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu