jQuery Ajax: pdf response

Question

I have a link and when user click on it, then he get a PDF. In jQuery, I create a POST ajax call to the server to get the PDF. The response is a PDF, with correct content headers etc that would normally cause the browser to open the Reader plugin, or allow the user to save the PDF. But in my case, this is not working. Is there any way to set data content type, or set content type to PDF?

My ajax call:

$('#sf_getpdf').click(function() {

 $.ajax({    //create an ajax request to load_page.php

        type: "POST",

        url: "index.php?route=sale/order/superfaktura_getpdf&token=<?php echo $token; ?>",

        data: 'invoice_id=<?php echo $invoice_id; ?>&sf_token=<?php echo $sf_token ?>',  //with the page number as a parameter

        dataType: "text",   //expect html to be returned


        success: function(msg){



            if(parseInt(msg)!=0)    //if no errors

            {

            document.write(msg)
            }

        }

    });

});

Firebug, response:

Response in browser...

I already tried to set content-type in server, without success:

Edit: The Ajax is not needed, to do this.

<a id="adr_stitok" target="_blank" href="index.php?route=sale/order/superfaktura_getpdf&token=<?php echo $token; ?>&invoice_id=<?php echo $invoice_id; ?>&sf_token=<?php echo $sf_token ?>" >Download</a></td>

Will do the thing.

Answer 1

Be sure your server side returns a downloadeable content and make a submit to the file, something like:

            //$.download('path', 'data' [, 'post'])
            $.download = function(url, data, method) {
                //url and data options required
                if(url && data) {
                    var form = $('<form />', { action: url, method: (method || 'get') });
                    $.each(data, function(key, value) {
                        var input = $('<input />', {
                            type: 'hidden',
                            name: key,
                            value: value
                        }).appendTo(form);
                    });
                return form.appendTo('body').submit().remove();
                }
            throw new Error('$.download(url, data) - url or data invalid');
            };

$.download("index.php?route=sale/order/superfaktura_getpdf&token=<?php echo $token; ?>", {}, 'post')