Displaying PDF to Browser with PHP not working

Question

Using php's ability to call upon the browser to display a given PDF it doesn't work on my web host. But it works on my local xamp server with apache.

PHP:

    $title = $_GET['title'];
    $loc = $_GET['loc'];

    header("Content-type: application/pdf");
    header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=".$title);
    @readfile($loc);

Expected Output: Supposed to be the PDF document being rendered like it does on my local web server.

Actual but unwanted output: %PDF-1.6 %�� 1638 0 obj <> endobj xref 1638 44 0000000016 00000 n ...

Can be seen here: http://neilau.me/view.php?title=business-studies-hsc-notes-2006.pdf&loc=pdf/criteria/business-studies/2006/business-studies-hsc-notes-2006.pdf

Is this fixed through changing something on my cpanel? As my code isn't faulty... It works on my local web server.

remove the @ before readfile, so you can get more error's details... — Masiorama
– Masiorama, Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 9:33
Well I visited that link and the response headers contain Content-Type:text/html; charset=UTF-8 so something must be overwriting them... — apokryfos
– apokryfos, Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 9:34
@NeilD check out apokryfos comment, it will put you in the right path. — Masiorama
– Masiorama, Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 9:44
@apokryfos How to I stop it from overriding? Could you tell me what causes this. Cheers — Neil D
– Neil D, Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 10:05

Palani Samy · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-08 12:59:59Z

3

Use this code

<?php
$file = 'dummy.pdf';
$filename = 'dummy.pdf';
header('Content-type: application/pdf');
header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="' . $filename . '"');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file));
header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');
@readfile($file);
?>

answered Jul 8, 2017 at 12:59

Palani Samy

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1 Comment

Neil D Over a year ago

Hi Palani, I've made my code the same as that however, as you can see on this link neilau.me/… it is still being displayed in letters and symbols.

apokryfos · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-08 15:05:03Z

You need to make sure you are not sending any text before writing headers.

Example of what not to do:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
...
<?php
header("Content-type: application/pdf");

Example of how to fix that:

<?php
header("Content-type: application/pdf");    
?>   
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
...

In addition your script is very insecure. Here's what you should do, your entire PHP script should be:

<?php
$loc = filter_input(INPUT_GET,"loc");
$title = filter_input(INPUT_GET,'title')?:basename($loc);
if (!is_readable($loc)) {
    http_response_code(404);
    echo "Cannot find that file";
    die();
}
if (strtolower(pathInfo($loc,PATHINFO_EXTENSION)) != "pdf") {
   http_response_code(403);
    echo "You are not allowed access to that file";
    die();
}

header("Content-type: application/pdf");
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=".$title);
header("Content-Length: ".filesize($loc));
readfile($loc);

If you want to show things like a page title or a frame around it, you should use an iframe in another "wrapper" page:

<?php 
$loc = filter_input(INPUT_GET,"loc");
$title = filter_input(INPUT_GET,'title')?:basename($loc);
?>
<html><head><title>My title</title></head>
<body>
<iframe src="/view.php?<?php echo ($loc?"loc=$loc":"").($title?"title=$title":"") ?>">
</iframe>
</body>
<html>

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