Hello all,

I would like to suggest you this article. It explains how to create a “trigger” download with jQuery using temporary forms.

To sum up we have a PHP part (backend is not mentioned in the article):

<?php
$filename = $_POST['filename'].".".$_POST['format'];
header ("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$filename");
echo $_POST['content'];
return

and a Javascript part:

jQuery.download = function(url, data, method){
	//url and data options required
	if( url && data ){ 
		//data can be string of parameters or array/object
		data = typeof data == 'string' ? data : jQuery.param(data);
		//split params into form inputs
		var inputs = '';
		jQuery.each(data.split('&'), function(){ 
			var pair = this.split('=');
			inputs+='<input type="hidden" name="'+ pair[0] +'" value="'+ pair[1] +'" />'; 
		});
		//send request
		jQuery('<form action="'+ url +'" method="'+ (method||'post') +'">'+inputs+'</form>')
		.appendTo('body').submit().remove();
	};
};

that is triggered with

$.download('/export.php','filename=mySpreadsheet&format=xls&content=' + spreadsheetData );

NOTE: Be aware of the splitter char ” = “, because if you are trying to generate something with ” = ” chars inside the script will not work, then replace:

var pair = this.split('=');

with

var pair = this.split('|'); // what you want