PDF file download using PHP

Question

When I click a download button, an ajax request is send and the HtmlToPDF() php function is called.

First I will create a pdf file from an html file using FPDF. After that I want to download the pdf file created .

Code:

function HtmlToPDF()
    {       
        $fileName = $_POST['fileName']; 
        $file = basename($fileName, ".html");
        $pdf=new HTML2FPDF();
        $pdf->AddPage();
        $fp = fopen("../".$fileName,"r");
        $strContent = fread($fp, filesize("../".$fileName));
        fclose($fp);
        $pdf->WriteHTML($strContent);
        $fullPath = "../Bills/".$file.".pdf";       
        $pdf->Output($fullPath);

        if (is_readable ($fullPath)) {
            $fsize = filesize($fullPath);
            $path_parts = pathinfo($fullPath);


            header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
            header("Content-type: application/pdf"); // add here more headers for diff.     extensions
            header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"".$path_parts["basename"]."\""); 
            header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');   // use 'attachment' to force a download              
            header('Expires: 0');
            header("Content-length: $fsize");
            header('Pragma: public');
            header ("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
            ob_clean();
            flush();
            echo file_get_contents($fullPath);          
            exit;       
        }   
    }

The PDF is created. but I can't download the file. the response is like

%PDF-1.3 3 0 obj <> endobj 4 0 obj <> stream x YMS 0 W h aɽA ) o L,Rw ۡÿ l a !3 $ }z }R9 P Dd D D ( _)YL~ & $ c 3 zk{, } 4pI4倒D D> B m-?4۹ | ]7Ym # H Tc 8 ӹ! 9 C L }?O O H , i | G Q S ?#R GYB KR 1 Qҡq ) Ql m % { / _ c XOۆQ )< Pg}Q e Χ7W ɠ 0e韉 e .Βb N W 6 ] 4 % pJ Wg ⡞ƕ yw o ' z 9 V R K# > < f r 6 r|: OEbfn ia ]S ! C<܅ " J Y} 1R +2 b e 0Z 4H i g\\h %R p 0 c ڵ @ulW϶ Q VJz Vȋ5 J ! 4: p @|0 ! B ՚{ñ X?[F([ pl G nHn 4 Q o 2 2 ! sަc- ?v S[ f&N l &A }^?P 8 x X $ i ͳry |gUZ X0= Q^ W Gʮ G^' 8 Ԁ ǯy d Ӵ ~ # $h]3* * G e endstream endobj 1 0 obj < endobj 5 0 obj < endobj 6 0 obj < endobj 7 0 obj < endobj 2 0 obj < > endobj 8 0 obj << /Producer (FPDF 1.52) /Creator (HTML2FPDF >> http://html2fpdf.sf.net ) /CreationDate (D:20130903060123) > endobj 9 0 obj << /Type /Catalog /Pages 1 0 R /OpenAction [3 0 R /FitH null] /PageLayout /OneColumn > endobj xref 0 10 0000000000 65535 f 0000000916 00000 n 0000001304 00000 n 0000000009 00000 n 00000000 87 00000 n 0000001003 00000 n 0000001099 00000 n 0000001200 00000 n 0000001412 00000 n 0000001536 00000 n trailer << /Size 10 /Root 9 0 R /Info 8 0 R > startxref 1639 %%EOF

I saw some stack overflow question related to this. PDF format error with PHP

But can't solve my problem. Please help me..

Answer 1

According to FPDF documentation, you could use the second Output() argument

Destination where to send the document. It can take one of the following values:

I: send the file inline to the browser. The plug-in is used if available. The name given by name is used when one selects the "Save as" option on the link generating the PDF.

D: send to the browser and force a file download with the name given by name.

F: save to a local file with the name given by name (may include a path).

S: return the document as a string. name is ignored.

By using the D argument, it should force a download, without using AJAX

Source