WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: [EXT] Opening PDF, Word Documents or other sites like Dropbox, One Drive or Google Drive in a new window ...

for

From: Bishop, Jeff - (jeffbis)
Date: Aug 14, 2023 5:05PM

See, this is the thing. Depending on how browsers treat a PDF the back button may not be available, which is why I was leaning toward opening in a new window. Thank you sir for your kind response.


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 4:02 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [EXT]Re: [WebAIM] Opening PDF, Word Documents or other sites like Dropbox, One Drive or Google Drive in a new window ...

External Email

And purely from a "giving my opinion" point of view: as long as it doesn't break the back button, I'd say a link to a PDF, Dropbox, etc can just be a straight link in the same window. The user can bail back out to the site using back. If you do provide a bit more context as part of the link (like adding a PDF icon with appropriate alt etc), users can then still choose themselves if they want to open in a new window or tab (by middle/wheel clicking, using context menu, etc) if they so wish.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux https://mastodon.social/@patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke