File as link

[PokeMaestro]

Hello, I want to create a link that leads to the download of a file, but I don't know how to do it. Can someone say me, how I can this do?

[Zeila]

Ok so I'll just post how you can do it for both Google Drive and Dropbox if you use those as file hosts. They're also free of ads and are usually preferred over something like Mediafire. I'm assuming you want a direct download link where it automatically downloads the file as opposed to the default link previews

Google Drive:
Right click the file to get a shareable link, then edit the file so that it turns from something like this
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5UO9Pn8VBidc3RhcnRlcl9maWxlX2Rhc2hlclYw/view?usp=sharing or
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5UO9Pn8VBidc3RhcnRlcl9maWxlX2Rhc2hlclYw

to this
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B5UO9Pn8VBidc3RhcnRlcl9maWxlX2Rhc2hlclYw

The id should be the same string of random alphanumerical characters, so no matter which format you get the link in, you can manually edit the link to include the /uc?export=download&id=[YourFileID]

Dropbox:
This one is a lot less manual editing, and only requires that you get the shared link when you click share -> create link, then manually change the number 0 at the end to a 1

so turning this
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ylmpzyfz7umy53g/Getting%20Started.pdf?dl=0

to this
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ylmpzyfz7umy53g/Getting%20Started.pdf?dl=1

As a bonus to conserve character space in forum posts or in general, a lot of people here use the website bit.ly to get link shorteners. And you can also use bbcode to edit the link so that it presents as text like this when you just do

Code Select Expand

[url=https://www.dropbox.com/s/ylmpzyfz7umy53g/Getting%20Started.pdf?dl=1]this[/url]
I hope this helps! :3 (also, this is late but welcome!)