 <p>i did like that and it worked: (it wont start to download, and it will open in a new tab (target _blank) if same tab, thenit is (target _self)</p> <p><code>&lt;a href="&lt;c:url value='resources/pdfs/your pdf(already in the project).pdf' /&gt;" target="_blank"&gt; show pdf in a new tab&lt;/a&gt;</code> </p>