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Download file from asp webapplication

I am working on an asp webapplication and i want the user to be able to download a file from a page. So when the user clicks on the "download template file" button it will start downloading a copy of the file to the computer. How can i do that?

To directly download file to your computer on button click just write this code on click event of button.
string filename = "~/File/yourFolder/"+ FileName;
string path = MapPath(filename);
byte[] bts = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(path);
Response.Clear();
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.AddHeader("Content-Type", "Application/octet-stream");
Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", bts.Length.ToString());
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + filename);
Response.BinaryWrite(bts);
Response.Flush();
Response.End();
Else if you are having hyperlink just give the path of file in navigate url

The user has to download a template file.
As you mentioned in a comment that the user just needs to download the file. So, you must already have the url for the template file that is placed on the server. like
www.testwebsite.com/templatefile.xls
Add a simple link button in the website and in the href/Navigate URL add your template url. Whenever the user will click it, the file will be automatically downloaded.

c# asp.net click button to "save as", but downloaded file becomes unintentionally modified

I have a method in my C# codebehind that connects to SQL and creates a CSV file based upon the SQL data. This method is called when the user clicks a particular button on the website. I am trying to get this same method to also prompt the user to "open" or "save as" after the CSV file is generated.
I have tried the following:
System.Web.HttpResponse response = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response;
response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + "C:\\temp\\report.csv" + ";");
Response.TransmitFile("C:\\temp\\report.csv");
The user does get prompted to "open or save as". In either case, the data in the CSV file also contains the entire source code of my Default.aspx. What do I need to do to my code to prevent that extra data from being appended onto my CSV? TIA...

You can call response.End() to prevent further processing by your page.

You need to clear the Response first - Response.Clear();
response.Clear();
...
response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + "C:\\temp\\report.csv" + ";");
Response.TransmitFile("C:\\temp\\report.csv");

display *doc,*xls,*pdf in browser window instead

i want to display *doc,*xls,*pdf in browser window instead of their respected application. i have tried following code, but no luck it prompt me dialog for save/open instead of displaying in browser
//Set the appropriate ContentType.
Response.ContentType = "Application/msword";
//Get the physical path to the file.
string FilePath = MapPath("wordfile.doc");
//Write the file directly to the HTTP content output stream.
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline;filename=" + "wordfile.doc");
Response.WriteFile(FilePath);
Response.End();
please help
thanks

for any of these proprietary formats you need browser plugins/extensions or ActiveX for IE
Am not sure if its available for office formats.
For PDF setting the content type to "application/pdf" and Content-Disposition to inline should work.

Chrome PDF Viewer "Save To Disk" feature - is it possible to control saved filename extension?

In an ASP.NET 2.0 application, using Google Chrome 13 on Windows.
My app dynamically generates a PDF report when the user browses to a particular aspx page. For the most part, things work fine on various browsers.
However, on Chrome, when Chrome's PDF viewer is being used, the following can happen :
- the user presses the floating diskette icon on the bottom right hand side of the viewer to save the PDF document. The file is saved with the aspx page's name. e.g. Report.aspx .
If I open that downloaded aspx file in Adobe Reader, it opens up ok as a PDF document. But is there a way to get chrome to default the name of the file to save to have a ".PDF" extension ?
EDIT :
The code for the report generation page looks something like this :
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Response.Clear();
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
byte[] data = GenerateReportHere(); // dynamically generate PDF report
Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", data.Length.ToString());
Response.BinaryWrite(data);
Response.Flush();
Response.End();
}
Note that I don't want to use a "Content-Disposition" header like :
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=Report.pdf");
because that causes the browser to ask the user if they want to download the file. In Chrome it won't display it in its PDF viewer - just gives the user the chance after downloading to open the file using whatever program they have associated with the ".pdf" file extension.

You should try using content-disposition header while streaming the PDF file to the browser. For example,
HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=[ReportName].pdf");
// Code to stream pdf file content to the client
...
For more info about content disposition, see
http://www.jtricks.com/bits/content_disposition.html
http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-rfc2183-in-http-latest.html

Since chrome is up to date with HTML5, we can use the shiny new download attribute!
Works

PDF in modal iframe renders blank in IE

EDIT 2
It appears that moving the object tag in the Dom is the cause of the problem. I added an iframe directly to the page and it works fine without any problems.
However, when I move that iFrame into a modal dialogue box (http://www.ericmmartin.com/projects/simplemodal/) the PDF disappears (the object tag no longer renders correctly).
So it appears that it's no longer a question about my handler, but more a question about why moving the "object" (or embed) tag in the DOM (which lives inside an iFrame) causes it to "blank-out."
Also, when the pdf is moved from the modal dialogue back to its original position, it appears correctly. So, perhaps I should focus more on the modal dialogue itself.
Thoughts? Thanks for your suggestions thus far.
EDIT 1
So I've made some modifications for testing.
I've got the iframe to output an object tag for pdf requests along with the server time.
Response.AddHeader("content-type", "text/html");
WebClient client = new WebClient();
Response.Write("<html><head></head><body><h1>"+ DateTime.Now.ToString() + "</h1><object height='100%' width='100%' name='plugin' data='" + Request.Url.ToString() + "&embed=true' type='application/pdf' /></body></html>");
Response.Flush();
Response.Close();
Response.End();
Now I get a page with the current time correctly, but the object only displays the PDF the first time after I publish the aspx page. So it appears to be some sort of caching issue? Except that the object isn't loading anything (not even the previously loaded PDF).
If right click on the iframe and refresh the page, the object loads up fine. (The same is true if I use an embed tag).
Original Question
I know there are a lot of questions on this...
streaming PDF data through an ASPX page
Server generated PDF not displaying in IFrame on aspx page on some (but not all )PCs
Displaying a PDF Document in ASP.net page
But they either weren't answered, or the answer didn't work.
Environment
.Net 4
Adobe 9.3.4
IIS 5.1
XP sp3
VS 2010
IE 8.0.6001.18702
Background
The pdf's I'm streaming come from a storage repository where the files don't have any extensions (this is done for security). I look up the file in the database and stream it back to the client via the following code:
Response.Clear();
WebClient client = new WebClient();
Byte[] buffer = client.DownloadData(sPath);
Response.AddHeader("content-length", buffer.Length.ToString());
Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "inline;filename=" + fileName);
Response.AddHeader("expires", "0");
Response.AddHeader("Content-Type", "application/pdf"); //this is usually dynamic to support other types (doc, xls, txt, etc.)
Response.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
Response.Flush();
Response.Close();
Response.End();
This works for every file type (doc, txt, xls, html) when used directly in the browser or in the iframe (displayed as a modal popup) with the exception of pdf files. They do not work reliably when accessed via the iframe, but work fine when accessed directly in the browser.
The only time it does work is the first time I request a document after I publish the aspx page that is serving these files. All subsequent hits return a blank page (even from new tabs or browser windows). Firefox reliably displays the pdf every time regardless.
Attempted Solutions
I've tried various ways I of streaming the file:
Response.TransmitFile(sPath);
Response.WriteFile(sPath);
//As well as some others
I've tried adding .pdf to a parameter at the end of the request
http://www.myurl.aspx?File=test.pdf
I've tried making the URL unique by adding a time stamp
http://www.myurl.aspx?File=test.pdf&Unique=Friday__September_17__2010_12_02_16_PM
Un-Attempted
I've read about IIS compression causing problems, but it was for a newer version of IIS.
Didn't try using embed tag since I would like to stick to the iFrame if possible (The existing infrastructure uses it).
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks.

I had a similar problem that arose when the PDFs were streaming over SSL (IE only, FF didn't exhibit the issue) that was only solved by doing the following:
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.ClearContent();
Response.Buffer = true;
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; attachment; filename=Filename.pdf");
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.WriteFile(path);
Response.Flush();
Response.End();

So I gave up and decided to use a standard IE popup window instead.
window.open(URL, 'Window', 'height=' + pageHeight + ',width=' + pageWidth + ',top=0,left=0,resizable');
I had to render the pdfs in an object tag and everything else inside an iframe within the popup for it to work, but it works...
if (sDocType == "pdf")
{
Response.AddHeader("content-type", "text/html");
WebClient client = new WebClient();
Response.Write("<html style='margin:0px;padding:0px;'><head></head><body style='margin:0px;padding:0px;'><object height='100%' width='100%' name='plugin' data='" + Request.Url.ToString() + "&embed=true' type='" + zGetContentType(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["docType"]) + "'><param name='src' value='" + Request.Url.ToString() + "&embed=true' />alt : <a href='" + Request.Url.ToString() + "&embed=true'>View</a></object></body></html>");
Response.Flush();
Response.Close();
Response.End();
}
else
{
Response.AddHeader("content-type", "text/html");
WebClient client = new WebClient();
Response.Write("<html style='margin:0px;padding:0px;'><head></head><body style='margin:0px;padding:0px;'><iframe frameborder='0' scrolling='no' height='100%' width='100%' src='" + Request.Url.ToString() + "&embed=true' /></body></html>");
Response.Flush();
Response.Close();
Response.End();
}

I'm not sure that you need to set the filename, especially if it doesn't have the .pdf extension. When streaming PDFs to browser in the past, I've always used this code:
Response.Clear();
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.BinaryWrite(pdfBuffer);
Response.Flush();
Otherwise, there's a possibility that something has hosed over the registry settings for the application/pdf CLSID on the client computer.

I was able to solve a similar problem (pdf inside of modal window internet explorer)
by taking out the iframe. Instead, load the pdf into an html object element.
see the link below:
http://intranation.com/test-cases/object-vs-iframe/
To sum it up:
The setup that did not work:
jQuery floatbox, loads html fragment with iframe, load aspx page into iframe, load pdf into aspx page
The setup that now works:
jQuery floatbox, loads html fragment, append object element.
before appending the object element, set data
attribute of object element to the aspx page url