You can make simple modifications to Dropbox links to share files the way you want. You can append the link URL to force the content to download or render in your browser.
To force a browser to download the contents of a link rather than display it, you can use dl=1 as a query parameter in your URL. For example:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a1b2c3d4ef5gh6/example.docx?dl=1
Note: The original shared link URL may contain query string parameters already (for example, dl=0). App developers should be sure to properly parse the URL and add or modify parameters as needed. The links may also redirect to *.dropbox.com/s/dl
Some browsers aren't configured to correctly preview files. While certain file types can be downloaded instead of opened, others—like HTML—are not supported.
To bypass the preview page and allow your browser to directly render your files, use raw=1 as a query parameter in your URL. Adding raw=1 to a URL will cause an HTTP redirect. If you're an app developer using such a URL in your own code, please make sure your app can follow redirects.
Note: Shared links don’t render HTML content in a web browser. If you created a website that directly displays HTML content from your Dropbox, it won’t render in the browser. The HTML content itself remains in your Dropbox and can be shared. The links may also redirect to *.dropbox.com/s/raw
Dropbox Basic (free) users: Beginning October 3, 2016, you can no longer use shared links to render HTML content in a web browser. If you created a website that directly displays HTML content from your Dropbox, it will no longer render in the browser. The HTML content itself will still remain in your Dropbox and can be shared.
Dropbox Plus and Business users: Beginning September 1, 2017, you can no longer render HTML content.