correct PHP headers for pdf file download

I’m really struggling to get my application to open a pdf when the user clicks on a link.

So far the anchor tag redirects to a page which sends headers that are:

$filename='./pdf/jobs/pdffile.pdf;

$url_download = BASE_URL . RELATIVE_PATH . $filename;

header("Content-type:application/pdf");
header("Content-Disposition:inline;filename='$filename");
readfile("downloaded.pdf");

this doesn’t seem to work, has anybody successfully sorted this problem in the past?

Answer

Example 2 on w3schools shows what you are trying to achieve.

<?php
header("Content-type:application/pdf");

// It will be called downloaded.pdf
header("Content-Disposition:attachment;filename='downloaded.pdf'");

// The PDF source is in original.pdf
readfile("original.pdf");
?>

Also remember that,

It is important to notice that header() must be called before any actual output is sent (In PHP 4 and later, you can use output buffering to solve this problem)