Technical MIME Specification & Web Server Guide
application/pdf
Technical overview, official IANA specification, header magic bytes, and server configuration snippets for .PDF files (Portable Document Format).
File Extension.pdf
Content-Type Header
application/pdf
Format Category
Documents
Standard Specification
RFC 8118 / ISO 32000-2
Description & Usage
Adobe resolution-independent document container format.
HTTP Server Content-Type Configuration Code
# Nginx mime.types configuration for .pdf
types {
application/pdf pdf;
}OS Compatibility Matrix
Windows
macOS
Linux
Android
iOS
Want to test header signatures or binary files?
Run binary magic byte inspection in Magic Byte Detector.
Frequently Asked Questions
The official MIME content type for .pdf files is "application/pdf". Web servers use this header to instruct browsers how to render or process .pdf data.