Laravel - display a PDF file in storage without forcing download?

I have a PDF file stored in app/storage/, and I want authenticated users to be able to view this file. I know that I can make them download it using

return Response::download($path, $filename, $headers);

but I was wondering if there is a way to make them view the file directly in the browser, for example when they are using Google Chrome with the built-in PDF viewer. Any help will be appreciated!

Solution 1:

Update for 2017

As of Laravel 5.2 documented under Other response types you can now use the file helper to display a file in the user's browser.

return response()->file($pathToFile);

return response()->file($pathToFile, $headers);

Source/thanks to below answer

Outdated answer from 2014

You just need to send the contents of the file to the browser and tell it the content type rather than tell the browser to download it.

$filename = 'test.pdf';
$path = storage_path($filename);

return Response::make(file_get_contents($path), 200, [
    'Content-Type' => 'application/pdf',
    'Content-Disposition' => 'inline; filename="'.$filename.'"'
]);

If you use Response::download it automatically sets the Content-Disposition to attachment which causes the browser to download it. See this question for the differences between Content-Disposition inline and attachment.

Edit: As per the request in the comments, I should point out that you'd need to use Response at the beginning of your file in order to use the Facade.

use Response;

Or the fully qualified namespace if Response isn't aliased to Illuminate's Response Facade.

Solution 2:

Since Laravel 5.2 you can use File Responses
Basically you can call it like this:

return response()->file($pathToFile);

and it will display files as PDF and images inline in the browser.