Proper MIME media type for PDF files

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johnmarson
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Proper MIME media type for PDF files

Post by johnmarson »

When working with PDFs, I've run across the MIME types application/pdf and application/x-pdf among others.

Is there a difference between these two types, and if so what is it? Is one preferred over the other?

I'm working on a web app which must deliver huge amounts of PDFs and I want to do it the correct way, if there is one.
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Paul - Tracker Supp
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Re: Proper MIME media type for PDF files

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi John,

thanks for the post and question. I did a quick Google on this and the first hit I found was what appears to be your very question. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3122 ... -pdf-files

I personally do not have any more detail for you other than the fact that was mentioned that x-pdf is to allow possibly older applications to recognize the file type. Given that application/pdf was registered in 1993 according to that forum I would expect that this is likely to work for almost all your needs.

It may be that one of my development team may be able to give you more detail on this than I can but since this is about internet standards and mime types I can't guarantee that they would be able to tell you more than what is already on that post. If they can they will post it here.

hth
Best regards

Paul O'Rorke
Tracker Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
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