Learn more Offering download links for files through your website is a common desire, and there are a couple ways to do it. Sites that offer website building tools, such as GoDaddy, WordPress, and Weebly, often offer the ability to upload a file at the same time as you make a link. If you build your own site from scratch, you can create download links using simple HTML code for files hosted on your server. To make a file downloadable from your website, start by creating a folder on your server for both your website's HTML page and the file you want to share.
Once you make the folder, you can find it by using your Control Panel's file manager or the file browser in your FTP program. From here, you can begin uploading files immediately by simply dragging them into the folder in the FTP window or by clicking the "Upload" button in the virtual control panel manager.
Once everything is uploaded, open your web page in the code editor and place your cursor where you want to add the download link. For more tips, including how to make a file downloadable from your WordPress site, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. Please log in with your username or email to continue. No account yet? Create an account.
Edit this Article. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookie Settings. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article methods. Related Articles. Article Summary. Method 1. Create an HTML page if you don't have one yet. You'll be adding your download link to an HTML web page. If you don't have an existing site, you can create a basic HTML page to test out the download link.
Open a folder on your server for both the page and the file. The easiest way to link a file is by placing the file in the same folder as the page's HTML file. Use the control panel file manager or the file browser in your FTP program to navigate to the folder containing the HTML file you'll be adding the link to. Your FTP client should already be configured to connect to your webserver since you've uploaded your site there before.
If your web server has an online control panel, you can access your server files directly through the web management interface. You'll be able to access this when you sign into your site as an administrator. Once you're in the control panel, select the "File Manager" option. If you created your website using a website creation tool like WordPress, Weebly, or Wix, see the platform-specific instructions in the methods below. Upload the file you want to create a link to.
Note that some servers may limit the size of the file you are allowed to upload, and large files can eat through your allotted bandwidth pretty quickly.
To upload files using your FTP program, drag the file into the folder in the FTP window that you want to upload it to. It will begin uploading immediately. Your upload speeds will typically be much slower than your download speeds, so it may take a while to completely upload the file. If you are using the virtual control panel file manager, click the "Upload" button at the top of the window. Browse your computer for the file you want to upload. Large files may take a while to upload to your server.
Open the page you want to add your link to in your code editor. Once the file is uploaded, you'll need to add the link to it on your web page. Open the HTML file that you want to add the link to. You can double-click it in the control panel file manager to open it in the built-in page editor.
Find the spot on the page that you want to add the link. Place your cursor in the spot in the code that you want to insert your download link. This could be in the body of a paragraph, at the bottom of a page, or anywhere else. Add the code for the link. Enter the following HTML5 code for your download link.
This will start the download immediately for users after they click the link. As long as the file to be downloaded is in the same folder as the HTML file, you just need to use the name and extension. If the file is located in another folder, you'll need to include the folder structure.
Create a download button instead of a link. You can use an image instead of text to create the download link. These protocols provide essentially all the services of a filesystem on a local drive, including file locking, but not built-in file version tracking.
Distributed filesystem facilities often come with the operating system; if added later, they usually require additional modules added to the OS. These protocols were developed to work over a LAN. Performance over the wide-area internet or a VPN will not be stellar, though you can mitigate that somewhat with tuning, and later versions of the protocols try to address this new use. These protocols have much larger attack surfaces than simpler protocols like WebDAV. Though some recent versions like NFSv4 and SMB3 make improvements to support secure use on untrusted networks, most versions of these services are not secure beyond the LAN, and configuring them for such use is perilous.
It does show up in some of them — Box. Other cloud storage services provide their own specialized APIs, file-synchronization software, and web-app clients, and if you want WebDAV access you need to use a third-party gateway. The specialized APIs, file-synchronization software, and web-app clients provided by the cloud services are designed to provide security and performance over networks like the internet.
Related: The best ways to transfer and share large files. None of the alternative systems for file management have all of those attributes. You can buy software packages that manage collaborative authoring, but then you will be paying for a system that just duplicates the services of WebDAV, which you can get for free.
Although WebDAV is sometimes depicted as an outmoded methodology, it has served popular cloud storage companies very well to provide seamless local access to remote files. Modern working practices of job sharing, project management, collaborative authoring, development coordination, telecommuting, and cloud services create a requirement for services that WebDAV has been able to provide for decades.
In many of its use cases, WebDAV is being supplanted by more modern mechanisms. When you set up a WebDAV connection, you are linking to a directory on your website. So, when you are asked for a server address, you need to enter the URL of your site. You will have the option of connecting to a specific folder on your web host. This is a better strategy than just communicating with the root directory. Set up a folder on your host files system with a name like WebDAVFiles before attempting to connect from a client device.
Different WebDAV implementations have different requirements. Some WebDAV interfaces have a separate field for the directory name. This is the case with the implementation on Ubuntu Linux. That is, asite. On a Mac, use the Finder tool to access the Connect to Server utility. By itself, WebDAV is not safe. It is a plain-text system. However, the service can easily be implemented with HTTPS as the transport system, which is fully encrypted and, therefore, safe.
However, there are many experts that claim to have tested both and found FTP to be faster. Great post. Excellent explanation about WebDAV. Use the latest browser recommended by Microsoft Get speed, security, and privacy with Microsoft Edge.
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