Firefox & PDF - a question

[Am3822]

Hi people,

I've been using Firefox 2.0.0.1 on the Mac without any real issues (other than some smudgy tab titles which had been described in other threads). There is, however, an issue with the way FF handles PDF files. Whenever I select 'open with preview' , FF saves a copy of the PDF file on the desktop -- even though I chose just to open it (I know that a temporary file should be created somewhere, but there is no reason for a copy to be saved to the desktop).

Do you know of a way to avoid this problem?

Many thanks,
Am.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Do you know of a way to avoid this problem?

Sorry, only thing I can think of (short of getting some inline pdf-reading plugin) is to make a "Downloads" folder somewhere and tell FF to use that for downloads...

I have another, related, issue: After I downloaded Adobe Reader, I actually want pdfs to open in that instead of Preview, but FF will not let me change applications:



Not trying to thread-jack you, chances are anybody who knows the answer to one of these issues also knows the other...

 

[Am3822]

Actually, I have the same problem, but I figured it'd be better to get preview working properly first. According to a macfixitforums.com post I've found through google, the FF/Adobe reader plugin is not available for Mac/Intel (at least at the time of the post).

As for your Preview suggestion -- my default download folder is not the desktop, so I don't think it'll help.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Actually, I have the same problem, but I figured it'd be better to get preview working properly first. According to a macfixitforums.com post I've found through google, the FF/Adobe reader plugin is not available for Mac/Intel (at least at the time of the post).

Ah, but the thing is I don't want to use a plug-in, I just want pdfs to open in Adobe Reader externally... but Firefox won't let me change, even after I purge my profile...

As for your Preview suggestion -- my default download folder is not the desktop, so I don't think it'll help.

I was afraid of that...

 

[iSaint]

Open Adobe Reader, then open the file you want to view with that program. Then save it while in Adobe. I believe it will open with Adobe from that point on.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Hey, I got it working - and it was embarrassingly easy...

I just chose "Open in Preview" and checked the "Do this automatically..." button, then I opened Firefox preferences -> Content -> File types -> Manage... and Changed the Action of the pdf entry (which I didn't have earlier because I've never checked the "Do this automatically..." before) from "Open them with the default..." to "Open them with this..." and browsed my way to Adobe Reader.



Still saves them on the desktop, though...

 

[bretknight]

Reading PDF's inline on Intel...Rosetta, it's kludgy, but it works

One work around is to select the FireFox icon in the Finder and give the Get Info command from the File menu, then click the "Open using Rosetta" checkbox in the resulting Get Info window.

This will force the PowerPC embedded version of FireFox to launch rather than the Intel-native version. The result will be that you can use PowerPC-native plug-ins like Schubert-IT's PDF Browser Plugin.

 

[killerrobot]

Just another thought- did you ever make Adobe the default opener of pdf files on your computer as well, not just through Firefox?

Once I did that, no more pdf file saves to the desktop, they just opened up in Adobe.

 

[polycat33]

I'm pretty sure there's no way to get around them saving to the desktop, if yours aren't saving there they're probably saving somewhere else since Firefox can't open a pdf without saving it somewhere.

 

[killerrobot]

I'm pretty sure there's no way to get around them saving to the desktop, if yours aren't saving there they're probably saving somewhere else since Firefox can't open a pdf without saving it somewhere.

It doesn't save it anywhere, it opens a new tab and downloads it, then it just opens it up in Adobe - completely apart from FF. I have to choose through Adobe whether to save it or not.