There are probably other ways to do this, but you can use two Troi plug-ins, URL and File, to achieve this functionality very easily.  Downside of course is that you have to buy the plug-ins.

 

The URL plugin is used to download the PDF file into a variable.  The File plugin is then used to save the variable as a file.  Although File thinks it's a text file, by simply adding ".pdf" it's saved as a PDF.  I read somewhere that variables can have up to 300 million characters or so, which means that this trick will work for any file up to around 300 megabytes in size.  And of course, it's not limited to PDFs.

Here's an example, which downloads a patent in PDF form from Google, and saves it to my hard drive.  Note that the other nice things about using Troi URL for this, as opposed to dropping into AppleScript and BASH/Curl, for instance, is that URL follows redirection of links.  The link in the example redirects to some storage server at Google -- if you used BASH/Curl, the redirection won't be followed.
 

Set Variable [ $thepatent; Value:TURL_Get("-NoDialog"; "http://www.google.com/patents/US8289390.pdf") ]

Set Variable [ $result; Value:TrFile_CreateFile(""; "Macintosh HD:Users:Mike:Sample.pdf") & TrFile_SetDefaultFileSpec(""; "Macintosh HD:Users:Mike:Sample.pdf") & TrFile_SetContents(""; $thepatent) ]

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This topic has been moved from "FileMaker 13 General Discussion" to "Articles, Tips, Techniques & Solutions".

 

 

Please post in the right forum if you want to share a technique.  The forum where you posted is reserved for questions.

Sorry about that!

Have you also tried using 'Insert from URL' script step to download a file into a container, and then use 'Export Field Contents' to save it? No plugins required :-)

I have not! I had this plug-in purchased and installed already for a different project, so I ended up using it.