UX/UI Pros, please help me settle a bet/beef on the topic of pdf downloads for a landing page. Here is the scenario:
We have a landing page with a button that reads, "Download This Resource." The button links to a pdf file. pdf files are "downloaded" in different ways based on browser and user settings. In some browsers the file downloads and in some the file opens in the browser window. To avoid this, it has been suggested to compress the pdf as a zip file to force a true download.
Here is my question: Given the scenario above, is it better to serve the pdf and live with the differences in the way the document downloads or create a zip of the pdf to force the download?
Thanks in advance for your input!
In my personal experience, I believe it is better to serve this as a PDF, since not all users will trust ZIP downloads. And even if you ZIP the PDF, when a user opens that file, it will still open it in browser if that's the way their machine is configured.
Best to stick with true pdf.