Problem opening PDF file when downloaded through Safari

[lillijean]

Hi there,

I'm setting up an online shop selling an e-book. Once purchased, the customer is sent an email containing a download link, which once clicked, starts the download process automatically. This is working well with apart from when Safari is used. The file downloads but when you try to open it a message appears saying;

"Acrobat could not open 'File_name' because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded).

To create an Adobe PDF document, go to the source application. Then print the document to Adobe PDF."

I made sure that I created the PDF in the way suggested (i.e printing the doc) but it still didn't work.

Any ideas?

This has the potential to annoy many a customer so you can imagine how frustrating this problem is for me. My website developer tested it on his computer and the same thing happened. He didn't know what to do so that's why I'm asking here

Thanks heaps for your time,

Lilli

 

[Blue Velvet]

Hard to tell without seeing the PDF and knowing more about precisely how you're producing the PDF from whatever application you're using. First things to possibly check are whether the file has its prefix and is PDF/X compliant, because anything should open one of those.

 

[lillijean]

The file was created in Indesign and using the print to PDF method.

Can you please expand on how I can check whether the file has its prefix and is PDF/X compliant? Sorry if that's a silly question but I'm not knowledgeable about this stuff.

Thanks!

 

[lillijean]

okay, an update.

I worked out how to save PDF/X files in Indesign (CS5) and so I saved as a PDF/X-1a and tested this in my store. No luck!

As before, Safari allows the file to download but when I try to open it that message appears saying that the file is either not supported or damaged.

I'd love to keep trying if there are any other suggestions?

 

[Blue Velvet]

The file was created in Indesign and using the print to PDF method.

If it's InDesign, then don't produce a PDF in that way. Menu > File > Export and select Adobe PDF (print). Use either High Quality Print or PDF x 1/A. Not sure if that will help, but it's best to eliminate that problem from the start.