Problem displaying PDF file in new window.

Question

Using NetBeans 6.5, Internet Explorer 7.
I am using the code example from BalusC at the site:
http://balusc.blogspot.com/2006/05/pdf-handling.html
I am having no problem reading and displaying the PDF file, but it displays it in the same window,
not a new window and it overwrites the current page, so I can't use the back arrow to fetch the page that is overwritten.
I am using a commandLink to fetch the file.
Does anyone know why I am not getting a new window or tab for the display?
The jsp portion for the link is:
<h:commandLink action="#{MainPage.linkAction3_action}" id="linkAction3"
          style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; left: 280px; top: 0px; position: absolute"
          target="_blank" value="Insurance Document"/>The "MainPage.linkAction_action" method just makes a call to the display function:
    public String linkAction3_action() {
        sb1.setMessage("");
        dsb.setFilePath("C:/");
        dsb.setFileName("Insurance_Summary.pdf");
        dsb.downloadPDF();
        return null;
    }And the downloadPDF() method is basically a cut and paste from the BalusC site;
    public void downloadPDF()
        // Reference:   http://balusc.blogspot.com/2006/05/pdf-handling.html
        // Prepare.
        FacesContext facesContext = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
        ExternalContext externalContext = facesContext.getExternalContext();
        HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) externalContext.getResponse();
        File file = new File(getFilePath(), getFileName());
        BufferedInputStream input = null;
        BufferedOutputStream output = null;
        try {
            // Open file.
            input = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(file), DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
            // Init servlet response.
            response.reset();
            response.setContentType("application/pdf");
            response.setContentLength( (int)file.length());
            response.setHeader("Content-disposition", "inline; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"");
            output = new BufferedOutputStream(response.getOutputStream(), DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
            // Write file contents to response.
            byte[] buffer = new byte[DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE];
            int length;
            while ((length = input.read(buffer)) > 0) {
                output.write(buffer, 0, length);
            // Finalize task.
            output.flush();
        catch( Exception e )
            System.out.println( "Error displaying file.");
        finally {
            // Gently close streams.
            close(output);
            close(input);
        // Inform JSF that it doesn't need to handle response.
        // This is very important, otherwise you will get the following exception in the logs:
        // java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot forward after response has been committed.
        facesContext.responseComplete();
    }

Answer 1

1) window.open will open a new window and call a servlet.
window.open ("http://path_to_yourservlet/PDFServlet", "newWindowName");
if you ant to pass some values from your web page to the servlet you can pass as
window.open ("http://path_to_yourservlet/PDFServlet?param1=value1&param2=value2", "newWindowName");
2) The servlet will fetch and display the pdf file.
import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
public class PDFServlet extends javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet implements javax.servlet.Servlet
     private final static int DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE = 1000;
     public PDFServlet()
          super();
     public void service(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException
          String fileName = "Insurance_Summary.pdf";
          File file = new File("C:/"+fileName+"");
          response.setContentType("application/pdf");
     OutputStream output = response.getOutputStream();
     BufferedInputStream input = null;
     //BufferedOutputStream output = null;
     try {
     // Open file.
     input = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(file), DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
     response.setContentLength( (int)file.length());
     response.setHeader("Content-disposition", "inline; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"");
     output = new BufferedOutputStream(response.getOutputStream(), DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE);
     // Write file contents to response.
     byte[] buffer = new byte[DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE];
     int length;
     while ((length = input.read(buffer)) > 0) {
     output.write(buffer, 0, length);
     output.flush();
     catch( Exception e )
     System.out.println( "Error displaying file.");
     finally {
     input.close();
Regards,
Milind Dhar