WebHelp links to PDF/Excel files not opening in IE

[twohlrabe]

I have a link in a HTML5 WebHelp topic to a PDF file. WHen I look at the topic in Preview mode, when I click on the link, the PDF file opens fine. However, when I open the whole WebHelp project in IE 11, and then click on the link, the PDF does not open (either nothing happens, or I get a blank screen). This also happens with links to Excel spreadsheets. When I view this topic in Chrome, however, the link works fine.

Does anyone know of a workaround for this?

[Msquared]

What version of Flare are you using? I know Flare 8 had problems with IE11.

[twohlrabe]

Version 9.1.2

[Chris B]

Are you able to open any PDF document via a URL while using IE11? I'm wondering if you need to install a plugin or modify your security settings in IE11.

[twohlrabe]

The PDF opens fine if you use the Preview Topic function in Flare. It is just if you attempt to open the link when you are viewing the full project that it does not work.

[hknix]

I realize this string is a bit old, but am curious if you ever found a solution to your problem. I'm experiencing something similar with links to Excel files, which exist in a folder in the compiled project. They launch/download just fine from FireFox or Chrome, but IE displays a blank screen (within IE) and never actually downloads the file.

[dorcutt]

I'm willing to bet you have the "Mark of the Web" option selected in your target, which is causing this issue.

Having the Mark of the Web is, on the whole, good. The problem is that it prohibits links to "external" files, such as your Excel files or PDFs. The way I solved this was by adding the PDFs to Resources file of the project, then using a hyperlink with the "File In Project" option selected. I also messed around with relative filepaths to make sure that it lined up properly with my PDF files, but I'm not sure if that was strictly necessary or not.

[hknix]

Removing Mark of the Web does indeed seem to solve the problem, but it creates other ones (mainly the Active X controls warning that displays in IE). When you say you added your PDFs to the Resources file, does that mean you added them to the Resources folder that is built into every Flare Project? The one that includes Stylesheets, Snippets, etc? I tried moving my file to that folder and updating the link with no success.

I guess a semi-related question... if I choose to deselect Mark of the Web, will Help run successfully without the Active X Control warning if it is called from a server vs. locally? What are the other pitfalls of deselecting that option?

[dorcutt]

I opted to keep Mark of the Web on, and I do have working PDF downloads in my HTML5 (tripane) output.

Yes, I made a new folder in my project's main Content > Resources folder called "PDF Downloads" and added all of the files that I wanted to include in there. You could make a folder called "Excel Sheets" or something. This keeps "mark of the web" from objecting, because you're linking to an internal file on the same server, not a mysterious PDF of Excel file on some other domain. It does, however, increase your project size a bit.

Then, to add the link, I did the following:

1. Where you want to add the link to the Excel download, insert hyperlink (not cross-reference)
2. Make sure the "File in Project" option is selected in the drop-down at the top
3. Navigated to the location of the PDF/Excel sheet and select it
4. Configure the other hyperlink options as usual (I like to use a style to make hyperlinks and cross-references appear the same)

If this isn't what you did, try that and see if it works. I had also done some manual tweaking of the relative filepath in the code, but I don't remember if this was actually necessary or not. If you're still stuck, I'll try to figure out what I did.