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I have a FreeMarker portlet that invokes a method that creates a PDF file using iTextPDF.  I know the file is created succesfully because I can navigate to the location and doubleclick and open it. So, I created some code to return the file to the browser:

	@Override
	public boolean serveResource(ResourceRequest resourceRequest, ResourceResponse resourceResponse)
			throws PortletException {
		
		String body = "";
		
		// Just to get a request object we can work with
		HttpServletRequest httprequest = PortalUtil.getHttpServletRequest(resourceRequest);
		HttpServletRequest osr = PortalUtil.getOriginalServletRequest(httprequest);
		HttpServletResponse httpresponse = PortalUtil.getHttpServletResponse(resourceResponse);

		String fileRef = "/mydata/data/iTextTable.pdf";
		
        File downloadFile = new File(fileRef);

        // modifies response
        httpresponse.setContentType("application/pdf");
        httpresponse.setContentLength((int) downloadFile.length());
        
        String headerValue = String.format("inline; filename=\"%s\"", fileRef);
        
        // set caching to no cache by whatever means you can.
        httpresponse.addHeader("Content Disposition", headerValue);
        httpresponse.addHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate");
        httpresponse.setHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
		String fileRef = BASE_DATA_PATH + "iSortedTextTable.pdf";
		
        File downloadFile = new File(fileRef);

        try {
            FileInputStream inStream = new FileInputStream(downloadFile);
          
	        OutputStream outStream =  httpresponse.getOutputStream();
	         
	        byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
	        int bytesRead = -1;
	         
	        while ((bytesRead = inStream.read(buffer)) > 0) {
	            outStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
	        }
	         
	        outStream.flush();
	        inStream.close();
            outStream.close();
        
        } catch(Exception e) {
        	e.printStackTrace();
        }

		return false;
	}

That is a snippet that I hope contains the relevant code.  The code runs without error.   In debug I can see that bytes are being written to the output stream but in the browser, nothing renders.  If I use the console to view the contant of the http response, I see stuff like this:

 %PDF-1.4
%����
2 0 obj
<</Length 544/Filter/FlateDecode>>stream

....and much much more "junk"

So I am not sure what is going on.  It *seems* like the pdf is being sent as a response but there is something wrong the data somehow.  I have searched for possible causes for a few days but I haven't come across a solution.  Is there a setting or config option I need to change?  Seems like I am just missing something simple.

Thanks,

Pete