Auto start file download after form submission

Question

I have a web form that users complete online. When they press submit it will start a file download for them.

At the moment, I process the form submission and generat

Answer 1

You can insert a hidden iframe into your page and submit your form to this iframe.

Answer 2

You could send the form to the Thank you document and put there a META refresh to the file download:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;url=download.php">
<p>Thank you! The download will start in 3 seconds. If not, use this link to download the <a href="download.php">file</a></p>

Answer 3

Add a second page that says something "thank you, your donwnload will start in a few seconds" and triggers the download using javascript:

$(document).ready(function(){
  window.setTimeout(function(){
    window.location = 'http://yourdownloadhost.com/file.zip';
  }, 1500);
});

or use a meta redirect.