Best way to let users download a .docx file?

If I was running a website and wanted to make a download link for a .docx file to let users download it what would be the best way?

I do not want to zip or rar it, or compress it in any way

If i create a normal a href link to the file it will download incorrectly or create problems for some or most users

Thanks

 

Pass it as a filetype of force download.

 

What kinds of problems? I can't recall ever seeing an issue with an href link to a source doc, but then again, it's been a while since I tried.

 

I've never heard of any delivery issues with doc or docx files and I support thousands of people who deliver files.

The only thing anyone ever complains about is that they can't open the newer Office 2007 / 2010 docx format because they don't have the compatibility pack update installed.

 

You have two options, depending on whether you have access to your server config or if you have a server-side script. If you're using php, you can use something like:

<?php
//define content as a docx
header('Content-type: application/docx');
// set the filename
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=download.docx');
// set the filesize
header('Content-Length: '.filesize("download.docx"));
// say where the file is
//read the file to be downloaded - path/to/document/file.docx
readfile_as_chunks("path/to/document/file.docx");

function readfile_as_chunks($filename){ 
 $chunksize = 1*(1024*1024); // how many bytes per chunk 
 $buffer = ''; 
 $handle = fopen($filename, 'rb'); 
 if ($handle === false) { 
 return false; 
 } 
 while (!feof($handle)) { 
   $buffer = fread($handle, $chunksize); 
 print $buffer; 
 } 
 return fclose($handle); 
 } 
?>

Code (markup):

If you're using a different server-side language you'll need to google for that.

If you have access to your server config, e.g. apache, you can do something like:

<FilesMatch "\.(?i:docx)$">
  ForceType application/octet-stream
  Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</FilesMatch>

Code (markup):

 

nevermind, I was being stupid

I forgot the docx is for 2007 only. So the errors were on earlier office versions