Broken link when trying to upload a pdf to website

[Kazzy]

Hi all,

Am a relative newbie to all this and need some help.   I have created a website and would like to add a pdf so customers can download a brochure.

I figured out the ftp thingy, managed to put the pdf into the public file and even figured out how to 'click here' etc. But, when I preview what I have done (i.e as if I was a customer) it just keeps saying 'broken link'.

Ive tried every which way, but just cant get passed this stage.   Every post Ive read says, you add yourdomain/file/blahblah.pdf, but nothing works.   What am I doing wrong 😞

Please could someone help me!

Many Thanks

[Sogo7]

Post a link to your site and we can take a look at the HTML to check that for errors.

Some older releases of the Adobe reader don't like opening in a browser either so it may help to know what version you have.

[Kazzy]

Hi,

I dont actually have adobe (only the normal reader), it was a file my boss sent over and our adobe at work is a year old. It opens up fine when I want to look at it.  The link is on my site now, www.westoakhomes.co.uk on the second page under current developments, next to the second photo.   I await your reply.

Many Thanks

Kazzy

[Sogo7]

Hello Kazzy, the link is pointing to a file that does not exist  'HEXAGON draft fina (2).Ink' It's either a typo error when you entered the filename or EasysiteWizard 8 has a problem.

Delete the pdf you uploaded previously and rename your local copy to something like HEXAGON1.pdf upload this and try linking again.

Here is what the code looks like at the moment in HTML/source view..[%20 is how spaces are encoded for links]

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.westoakhomes.co.uk/HEXAGON%20draft%20final%20(2).Ink" title="">Click Here </a>

This is what it needs to look like

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.westoakhomes.co.uk/HEXAGON1.pdf" title="">Click Here </a>

TIPS#

The website will load faster if pictures are re-sized before you use them. Don't use the site builder to make images fit, as it does not actually make the image files smaller instead  just squashes them to appear small. There are several good and free image editing packages out there just Google around for one. GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation) is a particulary good one, though maybe a little complicated for novices.

[Kazzy]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply.   I have had a look and whenever I try to put a pdf into the FTP folder (public or otherwise) it always says - ink - after the file name.   I am wondering if I have a problem with the FTP part.

The file on my desktop or in my documents looks like a proper white box with pdf written inside, but the minute it goes into ftp it is a white box with little red blue & grey dots and the right hand corner slightly turned down.   It dosent look like a pdf.

Is this the problem.   What am I doing wrong?

Many Thanks

Kazzy

[Sogo7]

---

 What am I doing wrong?

---

Probably nothing, this one of the pitfalls with using a site builder. They are good but inflexible and there are some things they seem to have trouble with, in this case pdf files.

If the site builder is messing up the pdf extension during the upload process then you'll need to log into the 'cPanel' file manager and manually alter the filename and  extension.. or at least that's what one would do with any normal webhosting provider. Though it's a common feature with 99.9% of web hosts BT does not actually have it on the basic package and I don't think it's an available  feature on the so called advanced version either.

Suggest using alternative FTP file uploader such as FileZilla (it's free) upload the pdf to the same folder location as the corrupted .Ink one , then open up the HTML / source code view in the site builder and alter the link by hand.

Sorry it's such an ugly fix...

Probably the simplest thing to do would be to create a new page using the content from the pdf and link to that.

[Kazzy]

Hi,

I managed to fix the corrupted pdf and download it again, but it still wont work???

I checked the html code and it says this

<P><A title="" href="#" target=_blank go_href="http://www.westoakhomes.co.uk/public/HEXAGON1.pdf">Click Here </A>to download our pdf for more information.</P></DIV>

So what now?     God, this is so frustrating and Im sorry to be a pain, but I am really trying to get this sorted.

Many, many, many thanks if you can help

Regards

Kazzy

[Kazzy]

Just to confirm, I have tried it with taking out the 'public' and every other which way I can.

PLEASE help

[Kazzy]

Hi,

I did what you suggested and dowloaded Filezilla.   I even watched a video on utube to make sure I was doing everything right.   I copy and pasted the url to exactly what it should be

AND it still wont work

seems it is a problem with BT and I cant get anywhere with the telephone help line

Such a simple thing to do that causes so much grief

Any help would be appreciated

Kazzy

[Kazzy · Accepted solution]

Update!

It turns out - after a 2hour phone conversation with BT and them doing remote access on my pc - that it was nothing I was doing wrong, but a problem BT's server has with pdfs.   It was supposed to be fixed last Friday, but is still an ongoing issue.

They reckon it may take a while to fix and have given me a reference that is valid for 2 weeks - ummmm dosent give you much confidence in BT as a company.

Think I will persaude my boss to move the five companies he has with them over to Talk Talk.

So if anyone else has this problem, take heart, its not you, its BT - again!