How to Use Content-disposition for force a file to download to the hard drive?

I want to force the browser to download a pdf file.

I am using the following code :

<a href="../doc/quot.pdf" target=_blank>Click here to Download quotation</a>

It makes the browser open the pdf in a new window, but I want it to download to the hard drive when a user clicks it.

I found that Content-disposition is used for this, but how do I use it in my case?

On the HTTP Response where you are returning the PDF file, ensure the content disposition header looks like:

Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=quot.pdf;

See content-disposition on the wikipedia MIME page.

With recent browsers you can use the HTML5 download attribute as well:

<a download="quot.pdf" href="../doc/quot.pdf">Click here to Download quotation</a>

It is supported by most of the recent browsers except MSIE11. You can use a polyfill, something like this (note that this is for data uri only, but it is a good start):

(function (){

    addEvent(window, "load", function (){
        if (isInternetExplorer())
            polyfillDataUriDownload();
    });

    function polyfillDataUriDownload(){
        var links = document.querySelectorAll('a[download], area[download]');
        for (var index = 0, length = links.length; index<length; ++index) {
            (function (link){
                var dataUri = link.getAttribute("href");
                var fileName = link.getAttribute("download");
                if (dataUri.slice(0,5) != "data:")
                    throw new Error("The XHR part is not implemented here.");
                addEvent(link, "click", function (event){
                    cancelEvent(event);
                    try {
                        var dataBlob = dataUriToBlob(dataUri);
                        forceBlobDownload(dataBlob, fileName);
                    } catch (e) {
                        alert(e)
                    }
                });
            })(links[index]);
        }
    }

    function forceBlobDownload(dataBlob, fileName){
        window.navigator.msSaveBlob(dataBlob, fileName);
    }

    function dataUriToBlob(dataUri) {
        if  (!(/base64/).test(dataUri))
            throw new Error("Supports only base64 encoding.");
        var parts = dataUri.split(/[:;,]/),
            type = parts[1],
            binData = atob(parts.pop()),
            mx = binData.length,
            uiArr = new Uint8Array(mx);
        for(var i = 0; i<mx; ++i)
            uiArr[i] = binData.charCodeAt(i);
        return new Blob([uiArr], {type: type});
    }

    function addEvent(subject, type, listener){
        if (window.addEventListener)
            subject.addEventListener(type, listener, false);
        else if (window.attachEvent)
            subject.attachEvent("on" + type, listener);
    }

    function cancelEvent(event){
        if (event.preventDefault)
            event.preventDefault();
        else
            event.returnValue = false;
    }

    function isInternetExplorer(){
        return /*@cc_on!@*/false || !!document.documentMode;
    }
    
})();