I have an indepedently hosted wordpress blog. And I have developed a free ebook for the purpose of using it to attract visitors and capturing their details. I guess part of my problem is that I don't know how/where to upload pdf file on the server.

Sorry if my question sounds too elementary. As you probably guess, I am not a webmaster.

Will appreciate if you help.

You upload it to the same place you upload your other files. I personally like to have a "documents" folder where I dump all documents meant for download.

To provide ability to download, you use the same technique you use to create regular links <a href="link to pdf goes here">Click here to download</a>

Good luck!

OR you may also force a dialog box on click of the link. Which ever way is possible.

my 2 cent

Or he can install a script that allows people to explore your files such as http://mwebng.net/demos/dhtmlproject2/
That is a free script i downloaded and modified - classified as a file explorer.
Ehm, yawa i wonder if that will work.

@Dhtml

I think yawa's concept would work. Anyway, I would prefer to add a target to my link like this:

<a href="link to pdf goes here" target="_blank">Click here to download</a>

or like i said earlier, force a download dialog box to pop up giving the user has a choice of saving to their local machine or opening directly after downloaded.

@ poster

You can also capture how many times the specific files has been downloaded and stop the download after a specific number(n).

Try something and get back when stuck. Remember, Google is your friend!

My 2 ~cent

yawa method works that's the method i use but if you need to capture people's email you will need an autoresponder

@poster, seems all has been said, start by using yawa's method. Then get back to us if you are still stuck.

Your question is not clear. I shall try to write the problem again.

oluoyenran' problem

1. You have a wordpress blog.
2. You have an ebook you wrote in pdf format.
3. You want put the ebook on your blog to attract people.
4. You want to capture visitor's details. (I am assuming, name, and email address for basic information you want)


Answer these questions

A. Will the ebook be available for full download or just a preview?
B. What type of details do you want to collect?
C. Do you want the entire system automated or do you want to be responding to each person manually?

First,  I must thank everybody for interest in helping me out. But untill Cactus, I seem to be lost in a maze of technicalities. Remember I am not a webmaster, apart from being a newbie to internet.

Now to your questions Cactus,

1. I will like to collect names ( at least, the first name), email address and optionally GSM nos.

2. the ebook will be available for full download.

3. It will be nice if it is automated ( at no cost).

In respect of the question 3, I have downloaded a free autoresponder software  for wordpress which unfortunately I could not deploy because of my technical incompetence! I hope this will enable be resolve this thing ASAP

Thanks

Understanding a problem is the first step to finding solutions. Glad I could put things straight.

I could provide you with the solution and how to go about resolving your dilemma. Normally I would like people to do things themselves to cut cost. But this is an exception. I will advice you to find someone who is competent enough to do it. Collecting user information depends on what you want to use it for and how you want to use it. You may require a database to store the information so that you can easily go through, or a comma separated file. But the good thing about wordpress is that it has plugins you can use to create forms and addition database fields to collect information.

I urge you to find someone to fix your problem.

As for the download of the pdf, you can simply put a link for download.

Am sure you may not have so much money to pay someone but if you want it really bad, if you want it to be functional without issues, find someone, pay the person well so that they do a good job.

Good luck

Cactus,
Thanks. But you are sounding like  you can fix the problem, for a fee of course. If this is the case how much will you take for that? I have one other problem- implementing my google adsense
By the way, where are you based?
You can contact me at jobsearchguru@ jobsearchhow.com if privacy is required