Cannot download word docs from my web page

[geroid]

I'm having a big problem that I just can't seem to solve. I have links in my web pages to word docs in the following format:

<a href="

http://www.panceltic...013/Piping.doc"

title="Camogie Entry Form" >Download Entry Form</a>

My problem is that the doc will not open. It does not lead to the standard 'open with (Microsoft Word) or Save as' dialogue box. It simply lead to a 'Page cannot be found' web page. The URL is correct, the doc name and location is correct. I just cannot figure it out. I have created microsoft word docs with form elements on them (text boxes etc.) that can be filled out by the user and saved then as ordinary word documents. This is a facility in word to allow me to create fillable forms andsave them as ordinary word docs. This is normal. I don't see how this could effect them downloading to a users PC. I have tested other docs and they are indeed downloading OK but not these newly created ones.
Is there a way I can overcome this issue??

Can anyone help???

 

[spamjim]

Page cannot be found" is simply an error relating to a document that cannot be found. It does not really matter what that document is or what it may contain (unless your computer or local network has filtering that blocks such file types).

Have you confirmed the case (upper/lower) of the filename? Is it ".DOC" and not ".DOCX"? Is there a space in the filename at the end? Does the file on the server have the necessary permissions to share through the web browser?

 

[datamasher]

Hi,

from link you have in your thread entry it seems to look like this :-

&lt;a href="<a rel="nofollow" href="[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.panceltic...013/Piping.doc"[/URL] target="_blank">[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.panceltic...013/Piping.doc</a>"[/URL] title="Camogie Entry Form" &gt;Download Entry Form&lt;/a&gt;<br />

I think it should look like this :-

<a href="[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.panceltic...013/Piping.doc"[/URL] target="blank" title="Camogie Entry Form">Download Entry Form</a><br />

What is your actual URL ?

Steve

 

[ChrisHunt]

I'm with spamjim - check your filename carefully, including it's case (especially if your site is hosted on a UNIX/LINUX box). In particular, I'd see if it's able to find

http://www.panceltic...013/piping.doc

. Note that some ftp programs will "helpfully" change the case of filenames when copying files between boxes.

I would recommend getting into the habit of using all-lower-case (and no spaces!) for all filenames - but then I'm a unix guy!

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[geroid]

Hi Everyone
Thanks for the help. I finally found the solution and it was not related to incorrect URl or folder names or filename. As I said, I created a fillable form in Microsoft Word under the 'Developer' tab (one must enable this). I created fillable text boxes, date fields and drop down menu choices. All this was easy enough but I simply could not download these docx document from the page. I don't know why. I tested ordinary Word documents and they worked fine but these .docx fillable forms simply would not budge. They led me straight to a 404. So I think the reason was to do with some of the form elements (date field etc.) of the form doc, I was having compatibility issues. I removed these elements and replaced them with ordinary text boxes and I then saved the doc as a 97-2003 Word doc (.doc) and it worked. I didn't change any html as I was sure I did not have incorrect URL or filenames/paths. So it works now and I'm not really sure why not before but as I say, all I did was save as earlier version and remove some form fields. I'm now almost 8 hours finding this solution and I thought I'd be out of here in 2.

Thanks again for all your suggestions

 

[spamjim]

geroid, it appears that all you have done to "solve" this is to change the filename extension on your file from ".DOCX" to ".DOC". You could have kept the Word form as it was and just updated your HTML to point to ".DOCX" instead of ".DOC".

datamasher, the "_blank" target is accurate and the URL you tried to correct was how tek-tips mangles URLs. geroid posted the correct HTML for linking to a "DOC" file.

 

[darryncooke]

spamjim is correct. your solution was a 5 second solution. Either rename the document in the link to ".docx" or resave the original as a ".doc" and upload it.

Those WERE your only 2 options as far as I can tell.

Darryn Cooke

http://www.darryncooke.com

| Marketing and Creative Services

 

[datamasher]

Hi spamjim,
thanks for heads up on the way tek tips mangles url's. I'll know in future.

datamasher