Opening a pdf file using JSP

Question

hi all,
we have a very simple requirement. A pdf file resides on the server. We want to have a link inside the jsp page, so when the user clicks the link the pdf file opens inside the browser.
Using pure html the simple code is:
<a href = "/document.pdf">Document</a>when the user clicks above link, the pdf file opens inside the browser.
The above code does NOT work for jsp.
Can someone assist us.
thanks
Trajano

Answer 1

The following HTML will open a PDF:
PDF Link
Thats all you need to add to your page.
The only point I am making is that JSP pages are a mix of Java and HTML. The one of the main functions of jsp is to generate HTML dynamically. You just need to make sure that that snippet of HTML, is output to the browser as such, so in jsp, java is de-limited by the opening and closing tags <% and %>.
Everything outside of these tags is considered HTML (or possibly javaScript). Just put your link outside these tags at the relevant point.
If you are within the tags, you can still write HTML to the browser with out .print(); :
<% out.print("<a href="01_delins_IG.pdf">PDF Link</a> "); %>
The following would write the link twice, first using java to write to the screen, the second in plain HTML outside the java tags.
<% out.print("<a href="01_delins_IG.pdf">PDF Link</a> "); %>
PDF Link