[lug] CGI Generated PDFs and MS Explorer 5.5 Problems...

[rm at mamma.varadinet.de]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 03:10:12AM -0700, George Sexton wrote:
> One thing that I can tell you from experience is that IE 5.5 ( and I assume
> lower) looks more intently upon the URL extension than the mime type.
> 
> For example:
> 
> Url: http://www.mycompany.com/x/x/file.asp
> 
> that sets the mime type to be application/excel
> 
> will not work. You have to have the file name be file.xls
> 
> The work-around is to create the file in a directory and re-direct the browser
> to a URL with the correct extension. Yet another example of MS not following
> the RFCs.

I agree, i had the same bad experience with URLs with an XML ending
but a content type of text/html. This was with Netscape, so they both
seem to act up ;-)
One cheap solution is to give the CGI a 'proper' ending like '.pdf'

 Ralf