Pdf gets mangled when accessing subversion repository via apache webdav

Question

I am running a subversion server with access via http using webdav. I have noticed that when I access the repository with a browser, sometimes the pdf files in the repository show up as plain text (as if you viewed the pdf with a text editor like emacs, vim, or notepad) instead of being downloaded, or opened with some pdf reader. If you save the page, then open it with a pdf reader, it works fine. Any ideas why this might be happening? It seems to be somewhat browser dependent, and doesn't happen with all files. The file below seems to have this problem a lot though: http://robfelty.com/subversion/ling5200/slides/ling5200-all-notes.pdf

Answer 1

Set the svn property svn:mime-type to application/octed-stream, or better yet to application/pdf.

Answer 2

Maybe the file has the wrong mime type? It should be something like "application/octet-stream".