How to switch embed element type from PDF stream to text stream

Question

In my JSP web application I am using the embed element to display a PDF.

<embed src="someurl" width="900">

The someurl will return a PDF stream in one case and a text stream in another case:

if (IamPDF) {
    response.setContentType("application/pdf");
    /* rest of stream flushing */
} else {
    response.setContentType("text/html");
    /* rest of stream flushing */
}

I can flush the PDF stream without problem in both IE and Chrome. In case of a text stream, IE is unable to display the stream, but it’s working in Chrome. And I did not specify any type in the embed element. How to make it work in IE?

Answer 1

You can resolve this by setting the type attribute of the embed element.

For HTML

<embed src="someurl" type="text/html" width="900">

and for PDF

<embed src="someurl" type="application/pdf" width="900">

Quoting the embed element specification:

The type attribute, if present, gives the MIME type by which the plugin to instantiate is selected. The value must be a valid MIME type. If both the type attribute and the src attribute are present, then the type attribute must specify the same type as the explicit Content-Type metadata of the resource given by the src attribute.

^{Links to MIME type and valid MIME type removed, they’re irrelevant.}