Why chrome opens pdf on download

In this blog post, we will see how to download PDF without opening in the Chrome browser.

Assume there can be a situation where you want to directly download the pdf file without actually opening it in the google chrome browser. Well, there is a way to do it.

Google Chrome browser usually opens the pdf file if you click on a link / click on download the pdf. This is because Google Chrome has an inbuilt capability to show the pdf on the new page. Whereas if you try with .xlx/.xlsx files they will be downloaded to the default folder/folder of your choice.

How to download PDF without opening in the Chrome browser

1. Open Google Chrome
2. Go to settings by clicking on the three vertical dots on the top right corner
3. Go to Advanced –> Search for “Privacy and security”
4. Select Site Settings
5. Look for PDF documents then enable “Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome”

Next time if you click on a link / click on download the pdf. It will directly be downloaded to your computer local storage.

Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome

If you want to have a choice where to download the file in chrome browser.

1. Open Google Chrome
2. Go to settings by clicking on the three vertical dots on the top right corner
3. Go to Advanced –> Downloads
4. Enable “Ask where to save each file before downloading”. As the name suggests enabling this option, Nest time when you downloading a file chrome will ask you where to download the file on your computer.

But, I am not sure if there is a way to download the .txt file without opening it in the chrome browser. Let me know if anyone has a solution for this. Thanks for reading.