We Keep Coding

Redirect from php file to a local HTML file [duplicate]

Test browser:
Version of Chrome: 52.0.2743.116
It is a simple javascript that is to open an image file from local like 'C:\002.jpg'
function run(){
var URL = "file:///C:\002.jpg";
window.open(URL, null);
}
run();
Here is my sample code.
https://fiddle.jshell.net/q326vLya/3/
Please give me any suitable suggestions.

We use Chrome a lot in the classroom and it is a must to working with local files.
What we have been using is "Web Server for Chrome". You start it up, choose the folder wishing to work with and go to URL (like 127.0.0.1:port you chose)
It is a simple server and cannot use PHP but for simple work, might be your solution:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-server-for-chrome/ofhbbkphhbklhfoeikjpcbhemlocgigb

1)
Open your terminal and type
npm install -g http-server
2)
Go to the root folder that you want to serve you files and type:
http-server ./
3)
Read the output of the terminal, something kinda http://localhost:8080 will appear.
Everything on there will be allowed to be got.
Example:
background: url('http://localhost:8080/waw.png');

Okay folks, I completely understand the security reasons behind this error message, but sometimes, we do need a workaround... and here's mine. It uses ASP.Net (rather than JavaScript, which this question was based on) but it'll hopefully be useful to someone.
Our in-house app has a webpage where users can create a list of shortcuts to useful files spread throughout our network. When they click on one of these shortcuts, we want to open these files... but of course, Chrome's error prevents this.
This webpage uses AngularJS 1.x to list the various shortcuts.
Originally, my webpage was attempting to directly create an <a href..> element pointing at the files, but this produced the "Not allowed to load local resource" error when a user clicked on one of these links.
<div ng-repeat='sc in listOfShortcuts' id="{{sc.ShtCut_ID}}" class="cssOneShortcutRecord" >
<div class="cssShortcutIcon">
<img ng-src="{{ GetIconName(sc.ShtCut_PathFilename); }}">
</div>
<div class="cssShortcutName">
<a ng-href="{{ sc.ShtCut_PathFilename }}" ng-attr-title="{{sc.ShtCut_Tooltip}}" target="_blank" >{{ sc.ShtCut_Name }}</a>
</div>
</div>
The solution was to replace those <a href..> elements with this code, to call a function in my Angular controller...
<div ng-click="OpenAnExternalFile(sc.ShtCut_PathFilename);" >
{{ sc.ShtCut_Name }}
</div>
The function itself is very simple...
$scope.OpenAnExternalFile = function (filename) {
//
// Open an external file (i.e. a file which ISN'T in our IIS folder)
// To do this, we get an ASP.Net Handler to manually load the file,
// then return it's contents in a Response.
//
var URL = '/Handlers/DownloadExternalFile.ashx?filename=' + encodeURIComponent(filename);
window.open(URL);
}
And in my ASP.Net project, I added a Handler file called DownloadExternalFile.aspx which contained this code:
namespace MikesProject.Handlers
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for DownloadExternalFile
/// </summary>
public class DownloadExternalFile : IHttpHandler
{
// We can't directly open a network file using Javascript, eg
// window.open("\\SomeNetworkPath\ExcelFile\MikesExcelFile.xls");
//
// Instead, we need to get Javascript to call this groovy helper class which loads such a file, then sends it to the stream.
// window.open("/Handlers/DownloadExternalFile.ashx?filename=//SomeNetworkPath/ExcelFile/MikesExcelFile.xls");
//
public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
{
string pathAndFilename = context.Request["filename"]; // eg "\\SomeNetworkPath\ExcelFile\MikesExcelFile.xls"
string filename = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(pathAndFilename); // eg "MikesExcelFile.xls"
context.Response.ClearContent();
WebClient webClient = new WebClient();
using (Stream stream = webClient.OpenRead(pathAndFilename))
{
// Process image...
byte[] data1 = new byte[stream.Length];
stream.Read(data1, 0, data1.Length);
context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", string.Format("attachment; filename={0}", filename));
context.Response.BinaryWrite(data1);
context.Response.Flush();
context.Response.SuppressContent = true;
context.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest();
}
}
public bool IsReusable
{
get
{
return false;
}
}
}
And that's it.
Now, when a user clicks on one of my Shortcut links, it calls the OpenAnExternalFile function, which opens this .ashx file, passing it the path+filename of the file we want to open.
This Handler code loads the file, then passes it's contents back in the HTTP response.
And, job done, the webpage opens the external file.
Phew ! Again - there is a reason why Chrome throws this "Not allowed to load local resources" exception, so tread carefully with this... but I'm posting this code just to demonstrate that this is a fairly simple way around this limitation.
Just one last comment: the original question wanted to open the file "C:\002.jpg". You can't do this. Your website will sit on one server (with it's own C: drive) and has no direct access to your user's own C: drive. So the best you can do is use code like mine to access files somewhere on a network drive.

Chrome specifically blocks local file access this way for security reasons.
Here's an article to workaround the flag in Chrome (and open your system up to vulnerabilities):
http://www.chrome-allow-file-access-from-file.com/

There is a workaround using Web Server for Chrome. Here are the steps:
Add the Extension to chrome.
Choose the folder (C:\images) and launch the server
on your desired port.
Now easily access your local file:
function run(){
// 8887 is the port number you have launched your serve
var URL = "http://127.0.0.1:8887/002.jpg";
window.open(URL, null);
}
run();
PS: You might need to select the CORS Header option from advanced setting incase you face any cross origin access error.

This issue come when I am using PHP as server side language and the work around was to generate base64 enconding of my image before sending the result to client
$path = 'E:/pat/rwanda.png';
$type = pathinfo($path, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
$data = file_get_contents($path);
$base64 = 'data:image/' . $type . ';base64,' . base64_encode($data);
I think may give someone idea to create his own work around
Thanks

Google Chrome does not allow to load local resources because of the security. Chrome need http url. Internet Explorer and Edge allows to load local resources, but Safari, Chrome, and Firefox doesn't allows to load local resources.
Go to file location and start the Python Server from there.
python -m SimpleHttpServer
then put that url into function:
function run(){
var URL = "http://172.271.1.20:8000/" /* http://0.0.0.0:8000/ or http://127.0.0.1:8000/; */
window.open(URL, null);
}

If you have php installed - you can use built-in server. Just open target dir with files and run
php -S localhost:8001

If you could do this, it will represent a big security problem, as you can access your filesystem, and potentially act on the data available there... Luckily it's not possible to do what you're trying to do.
If you need local resources to be accessed, you can try to start a web server on your machine, and in this case your method will work. Other workarounds are possible, such as acting on Chrome settings, but I always prefer the clean way, installing a local web server, maybe on a different port (no, it's not so difficult!).
See also:
Open local files(file://) using Chrome
Opening local files from chrome

You just need to replace all image network paths to byte strings in stored Encoded HTML string.
For this you required HtmlAgilityPack to convert Html string to Html document.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/HtmlAgilityPack
Find Below code to convert each image src network path(or local path) to byte sting.
It will definitely display all images with network path(or local path) in IE,chrome and firefox.
string encodedHtmlString = Emailmodel.DtEmailFields.Rows[0]["Body"].ToString();
// Decode the encoded string.
StringWriter myWriter = new StringWriter();
HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(encodedHtmlString, myWriter);
string DecodedHtmlString = myWriter.ToString();
//find and replace each img src with byte string
HtmlDocument document = new HtmlDocument();
document.LoadHtml(DecodedHtmlString);
document.DocumentNode.Descendants("img")
.Where(e =>
{
string src = e.GetAttributeValue("src", null) ?? "";
return !string.IsNullOrEmpty(src);//&& src.StartsWith("data:image");
})
.ToList()
.ForEach(x =>
{
string currentSrcValue = x.GetAttributeValue("src", null);
string filePath = Path.GetDirectoryName(currentSrcValue) + "\\";
string filename = Path.GetFileName(currentSrcValue);
string contenttype = "image/" + Path.GetExtension(filename).Replace(".", "");
FileStream fs = new FileStream(filePath + filename, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(fs);
Byte[] bytes = br.ReadBytes((Int32)fs.Length);
br.Close();
fs.Close();
x.SetAttributeValue("src", "data:" + contenttype + ";base64," + Convert.ToBase64String(bytes));
});
string result = document.DocumentNode.OuterHtml;
//Encode HTML string
string myEncodedString = HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(result);
Emailmodel.DtEmailFields.Rows[0]["Body"] = myEncodedString;

Chrome and other Browser restrict the access of a server to local files due to security reasons. However you can open the browser in allowed access mode. Just open the terminal and go to the folder where chrome.exe is stored and write the following command.
chrome.exe --allow-file-access-from-files
Read this for more details
This way, However, didn't work for me so I made a different route for every file in a particular directory. Therefore, going to that path meant opening that file.
function getroutes(list){
list.forEach(function(element) {
app.get("/"+ element, function(req, res) {
res.sendFile(__dirname + "/public/extracted/" + element);
});
});
}
I called this function passing the list of filename in the directory __dirname/public/extracted and it created a different route for each filename which I was able to render on server side.

This is for google-chrome-extension
const url = "file:///C:\002.jpg"
chrome.tabs.create({url, active:true})
manifest.json
{
"name": "",
"manifest_version": 3,
"permissions": [
"activeTab",
"tabs"
],
// ...
}

This solution worked for me in PHP. It opens the PDF in the browser.
// $path is the path to the pdf file
public function showPDF($path) {
if($path) {
header("Content-type: application/pdf");
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=filename.pdf");
#readfile($path);
}
}

I've encounterd this problem, and here is my solution for Angular, I wrapped my Angular's asset folder in encodeURIComponent() function. It worked. But still, I'd like to know more about the risk of this solution if there's any:
```const URL = ${encodeURIComponent(/assets/office/file_2.pdf)}
window.open(URL)
I used Angular 9, so this is my url when I clicked open local file:
```http://localhost:4200/%2Fassets%2Foffice%2Ffile_2.pdf```

In the case of audio files, when you give <audio src="C://somePath"/>, this throws an error saying cannot load local resource.
This makes sense because any webpage can't simply give a local path and access your private files.
In case you are trying to play audio with dynamic paths, by changing src property through JS, then here is a sample implementation using Flask server and HTML.
server.py
#app.route("/")
def home():
return render_template('audioMap.html')
#app.route('/<audio_file_name>')
def view_method(audio_file_name):
path_to_audio_file = "C:/Audios/yourFolderPath" + audio_file_name
return send_file(
path_to_audio_file,
mimetype="audio/mp3",
as_attachment=True,
attachment_filename="test.mp3")
audioMap.html
{% raw %}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
AUDIO: <audio src="Std.mp3" controls >
</body>
</html>
{% endraw %}
Explanation:
When you give the audio file name under src property, this creates a get request in the flask as shown
127.0.0.1 - - [04/May/2021 21:33:12] "GET /Std.mp3 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
As you can see that, the flask has sent a Get request for the Std.mp3 file. So to serve this get request, we wrote an endpoint that takes the audio file name, reads it from the local directory, and returns it back. Hence the audio shows up on UI.
Note: This works only if you are rendering your HTML file using the
render_template method via flask or to say, using flask as your web server.

Google Chrome does not allow to load local resources because of the security .
There is a simple solution for this problem .
1.install live-server plugin in vscode
2.open the html file by live-server

Can I set the filename of a PDF object displayed in Chrome?

In my Vue app I receive a PDF as a blob, and want to display it using the browser's PDF viewer.
I convert it to a file, and generate an object url:
const blobFile = new File([blob], `my-file-name.pdf`, { type: 'application/pdf' })
this.invoiceUrl = window.URL.createObjectURL(blobFile)
Then I display it by setting that URL as the data attribute of an object element.
<object
:data="invoiceUrl"
type="application/pdf"
width="100%"
style="height: 100vh;">
</object>
The browser then displays the PDF using the PDF viewer. However, in Chrome, the file name that I provide (here, my-file-name.pdf) is not used: I see a hash in the title bar of the PDF viewer, and when I download the file using either 'right click -> Save as...' or the viewer's controls, it saves the file with the blob's hash (cda675a6-10af-42f3-aa68-8795aa8c377d or similar).
The viewer and file name work as I'd hoped in Firefox; it's only Chrome in which the file name is not used.
Is there any way, using native Javascript (including ES6, but no 3rd party dependencies other than Vue), to set the filename for a blob / object element in Chrome?
[edit] If it helps, the response has the following relevant headers:
Content-Type: application/pdf; charset=utf-8
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=utf-8''Invoice%2016246.pdf;
Content-Description: File Transfer
Content-Encoding: gzip

Chrome's extension seems to rely on the resource name set in the URI, i.e the file.ext in protocol://domain/path/file.ext.
So if your original URI contains that filename, the easiest might be to simply make your <object>'s data to the URI you fetched the pdf from directly, instead of going the Blob's way.
Now, there are cases it can't be done, and for these, there is a convoluted way, which might not work in future versions of Chrome, and probably not in other browsers, requiring to set up a Service Worker.
As we first said, Chrome parses the URI in search of a filename, so what we have to do, is to have an URI, with this filename, pointing to our blob:// URI.
To do so, we can use the Cache API, store our File as Request in there using our URL, and then retrieve that File from the Cache in the ServiceWorker.
Or in code,
From the main page
// register our ServiceWorker
navigator.serviceWorker.register('/sw.js')
.then(...
...
async function displayRenamedPDF(file, filename) {
// we use an hard-coded fake path
// to not interfere with legit requests
const reg_path = "/name-forcer/";
const url = reg_path + filename;
// store our File in the Cache
const store = await caches.open( "name-forcer" );
await store.put( url, new Response( file ) );
const frame = document.createElement( "iframe" );
frame.width = 400
frame.height = 500;
document.body.append( frame );
// makes the request to the File we just cached
frame.src = url;
// not needed anymore
frame.onload = (evt) => store.delete( url );
}
In the ServiceWorker sw.js
self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
event.respondWith( (async () => {
const store = await caches.open("name-forcer");
const req = event.request;
const cached = await store.match( req );
return cached || fetch( req );
})() );
});
Live example (source)
Edit: This actually doesn't work in Chrome...
While it does set correctly the filename in the dialog, they seem to be unable to retrieve the file when saving it to the disk...
They don't seem to perform a Network request (and thus our SW isn't catching anything), and I don't really know where to look now.
Still this may be a good ground for future work on this.
And an other solution, I didn't took the time to check by myself, would be to run your own pdf viewer.
Mozilla has made its js based plugin pdf.js available, so from there we should be able to set the filename (even though once again I didn't dug there yet).
And as final note, Firefox is able to use the name property of a File Object a blobURI points to.
So even though it's not what OP asked for, in FF all it requires is
const file = new File([blob], filename);
const url = URL.createObjectURL(file);
object.data = url;

In Chrome, the filename is derived from the URL, so as long as you are using a blob URL, the short answer is "No, you cannot set the filename of a PDF object displayed in Chrome." You have no control over the UUID assigned to the blob URL and no way to override that as the name of the page using the object element. It is possible that inside the PDF a title is specified, and that will appear in the PDF viewer as the document name, but you still get the hash name when downloading.
This appears to be a security precaution, but I cannot say for sure.
Of course, if you have control over the URL, you can easily set the PDF filename by changing the URL.

I believe Kaiido's answer expresses, briefly, the best solution here:
"if your original URI contains that filename, the easiest might be to simply make your object's data to the URI you fetched the pdf from directly"
Especially for those coming from this similar question, it would have helped me to have more description of a specific implementation (working for pdfs) that allows the best user experience, especially when serving files that are generated on the fly.
The trick here is using a two-step process that perfectly mimics a normal link or button click. The client must (step 1) request the file be generated and stored server-side long enough for the client to (step 2) request the file itself. This requires you have some mechanism supporting unique identification of the file on disk or in a cache.
Without this process, the user will just see a blank tab while file-generation is in-progress and if it fails, then they'll just get the browser's ERR_TIMED_OUT page. Even if it succeeds, they'll have a hash in the title bar of the PDF viewer tab, and the save dialog will have the same hash as the suggested filename.
Here's the play-by-play to do better:
You can use an anchor tag or a button for the "download" or "view in browser" elements
Step 1 of 2 on the client: that element's click event can make a request for the file to be generated only (not transmitted).
Step 1 of 2 on the server: generate the file and hold on to it. Return only the filename to the client.
Step 2 of 2 on the client:
If viewing the file in the browser, use the filename returned from the generate request to then invoke window.open('view_file/<filename>?fileId=1'). That is the only way to indirectly control the name of the file as shown in the tab title and in any subsequent save dialog.
If downloading, just invoke window.open('download_file?fileId=1').
Step 2 of 2 on the server:
view_file(filename, fileId) handler just needs to serve the file using the fileId and ignore the filename parameter. In .NET, you can use a FileContentResult like File(bytes, contentType);
download_file(fileId) must set the filename via the Content-Disposition header as shown here. In .NET, that's return File(bytes, contentType, desiredFilename);
client-side download example:
download_link_clicked() {
// show spinner
ajaxGet(generate_file_url,
{},
(response) => {
// success!
// the server-side is responsible for setting the name
// of the file when it is being downloaded
window.open('download_file?fileId=1', "_blank");
// hide spinner
},
() => { // failure
// hide spinner
// proglem, notify pattern
},
null
);
client-side view example:
view_link_clicked() {
// show spinner
ajaxGet(generate_file_url,
{},
(response) => {
// success!
let filename = response.filename;
// simplest, reliable method I know of for controlling
// the filename of the PDF when viewed in the browser
window.open('view_file/'+filename+'?fileId=1')
// hide spinner
},
() => { // failure
// hide spinner
// proglem, notify pattern
},
null
);

I'm using the library pdf-lib, you can click here to learn more about the library.
I solved part of this problem by using api Document.setTitle("Some title text you want"),
Browser displayed my title correctly, but when click the download button, file name is still previous UUID. Perhaps there is other api in the library that allows you to modify download file name.

Saving file with JavaScript File API results wrong encoding

I have a problem (or may be two) with saving files using HTML5 File API.
A files comes from the server as a byte array and I need to save it. I tried several ways described on SO:
creating blob and opening it in a new tab
creating a hidden anchor tag with "data:" in href attribute
using FileSaver.js
All approaches allow to save the file but with breaking it by changing the encoding to UTF-8, while the file (in current test case) is in ANSI. And it seems that I have to problems: at the server side and at the client side.
Server side:
Server side is ASP.NET Web API 2 app, which controller sends the file using HttpResponseMessage with StreamContent. The ContentType is correct and corresponds with actual file type.
But as can be seen on the screenshot below server's answer (data.length) is less then actual file size calculated at upload (file.size). Also here could be seen that HTML5 File object has yet another size (f.size).
If I add CharSet with value "ANSI" to server's response message's ContentType property, file data will be the same as it was uploaded, but on saving result file still has wrong size and become broken:
Client side:
I tried to set charset using the JS File options, but it didn't help. As could be found here and here Eli Grey, the author of FileUplaod.js says that
The encoding/charset in the type is just metadata for the browser, not an encoding directive.
which means, if I understood it right, that it is impossible to change the encoding of the file.
Issue result: at the end I can successfully download broken files which are unable to open.
So I have two questions:
How can I save file "as is" using File API. At present time I cannot use simple way with direct link and 'download' attribute because of serverside check for access_token in request header. May be this is the "bottle neck" of the problem?
How can I avoid setting CharSet at server side and also send byte array "as is"? While this problem could be hacked in some way I guess it's more critical. For example, while "ANSI" charset solves the problem with the current file, WinMerge shows that it's encoding is Cyrillic 'Windows-1251' and also can any other.
P.S. the issue is related to all file types (extensions) except *.txt.
Update
Server side code:
public HttpResponseMessage DownloadAttachment(Guid fileId)
{
var stream = GetFileStream(fileId);
var message = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK);
message.Content = new StreamContent(stream);
message.Content.Headers.ContentLength = file.Size;
message.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue(file.ContentType)
{
// without this charset files sent with bigger size
// than they are as shown on image 1
CharSet = "ANSI"
};
message.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment")
{
FileName = file.FileName + file.Extension,
Size = file.Size
};
return message;
}
Client side code (TypeScript):
/*
* Handler for click event on download <a> tag
*/
private downloadFile(file: Models.File) {
var self = this;
this.$service.downloadAttachment(this.entityId, file.fileId).then(
// on success
function (data, status, headers, config) {
var fileName = file.fileName + file.extension;
var clientFile = new File([data], fileName);
// here's the issue ---^
saveAs(clientFile, fileName);
},
// on fail
function (error) {
self.alertError(error);
});
}
My code is almost the same as in answers on related questions on SO: instead of setting direct link in 'a' tag, I handle click on it and download file content via XHR (in my case using Angularjs $http service). Getting the file content I create a Blob object (in my case I use File class that derives from Blob) and then try to save it using FileSaver.js. I also tried approach with encoded URL to Blob in href attribute, but it only opens a new tab with a file broken the same way. I found that the problem is in Blob class - calling it's constructor with 'normal' file data I get an instance with 'wrong' size as could be seen on first two screenshots. So, as I understand, my problem not in the way I try to save my file, but in the way I create it - File API

Upload file to Windows Azure with only the link of the file is provided

How can I upload a file in azure if I only have the URL of the file to upload. In this case, i 'm using Dropbox file chooser which selects file from dropbox and returns its url path.
eq
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o9myet72y19iaan/Getting%20Started.pdf
Now we need the file to be stored in Windows Azure blob. What is the easiest way to do this without downloading the file first.
I'm planning to use a asp.net web api for the uploading of file to azure blob.

At first, I thought it should be quite straight forward as Azure Blob Storage support copying blobs from external URL however I don't think this would work in case of Dropbox files. I just tried it and got an error even though.
The link you mentioned above is not the direct link to the file. It's a link to a page on Dropbox's website from where you can download a file. This is obviously you don't want. Here's an alternate solution which you can try:
Replace www.dropbox.com in your URL with dl.dropboxusercontent.com (based on #smarx's comments below) and use that URL in the following code:
First you would need to append dl=1 to your request URL as query string. So your Dropbox URL would be https://www.dropbox.com/s/o9myet72y19iaan/Getting%20Started.pdf?dl=1. dl query string parameter indicates the file needs to be downloaded.
Next, using HTTPWebRequest try accessing this URL. Dropbox will respond back with another link and 302 status code. This link would be something like https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/o9myet72y19iaan/Getting%20Started.pdf?token_hash=<tokenhash>.
Use this link in the code below to copy file. This would work.
CloudStorageAccount acc = new CloudStorageAccount(new StorageCredentials("account", "key"), false);
var client = acc.CreateCloudBlobClient();
var container = client.GetContainerReference("container-name");
container.CreateIfNotExists();
var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference("dropbox-file-name");
blob.StartCopyFromBlob(new Uri("dropbox URL with dl.dropboxusercontent.com"));
Console.WriteLine("Copy request accepted");
Console.WriteLine("Now checking for copy state");
bool continueLoop = true;
do
{
blob.FetchAttributes();
var copyState = blob.CopyState;
switch (copyState.Status)
{
case CopyStatus.Pending:
Console.WriteLine("Copy is still pending. Will check status again after 1 second.");
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);//Copy is still pending...check after 1 second
break;
default:
Console.WriteLine("Terminating process with copy state = " + copyState.Status);
continueLoop = false;
break;
}
}
while (continueLoop);
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue.");

Open a new window on response with pdf attachment

jqGrid('navButtonAdd',"#pager2",{caption:"Save All",title:"Save & Create Receipt",onClickButton:function () {
var s;
s = jQuery("#list2").jqGrid('getDataIDs');
alert("selected");
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url:'http://localhost:3000/order/receipt',
data: {ids: s},
});
}});
With above code, I'm able to submit data to server and the on server side it will generate a pdf as attachment, now I want to view the pdf on response via a new window/tab on browser.
Anyway to do it?
thanks,
lupind

If you return a URL to the just generated PDF then you can call window.open with that URL. But I wouldn't use an Ajax call if you want to open a new window to display the PDF anyway. In this case I would either:
Use Javascript's window.open passing
through the data in the URL to the
page that generates the PDF and let
it output to the browser's window
(but it might be too much data in the
URL)
Create a special form to hold
the data from your page and submit
that form. This special form would
have a target attribute set
(target="_blank") to open it in a new
window/tab.
For me, using two HTTP calls for one result (the generation and viewing of a PDF) is a waste.

You can use window.open() to open a new window with a specified URL. Be careful, though, only to do this when necessary.

Excerpt from this link.
Use an iframe with visibility:hidden, then change the iframe location to a downloadable file in javascript on the success callback.
var iFrame = document.getElementById('hiddenIFrame');
iFrame.src = theurlThatWillProduceTheFile;