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danny_w

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 8, 2005
4,473
305
Cumming, GA
When I attempt to open a pdf file in Firefox I get a dialog box asking me to "Open with" or "Save to Disk"? The problem is the "Open with" lists only an old app that I no longer have, and doesn't give me a choice to select which app to use. If I go ahead and click OK it opens in Preview which is fine, but why does the dialog box only show an old app that is no longer available? How this this info get filled in, and how can I fix this?
 
Try this: Quit Firefox. Find a PDF file on your computer somewhere, control-clicking or right-clicking it, and then holding option. This will change the "Open With" to "Always Open With." Then select Preview from the list or else choose other and navigate to it. Now after you do this, re-open Firefox and see if the issue is resolved.

Also consider this plugin: http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginpdf/
 
Try this: Quit Firefox. Find a PDF file on your computer somewhere, control-clicking or right-clicking it, and then holding option. This will change the "Open With" to "Always Open With." Then select Preview from the list or else choose other and navigate to it. Now after you do this, re-open Firefox and see if the issue is resolved.

Also consider this plugin: http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginpdf/

Just to share my experience, that works, but it doesn't change the behavior in Firefox. See this page: http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/OSX.html

Looks like the Acrobat plugin isn't supported on OSX...which to me is weird.

I haven't tried that other plugin yet....anyone have any experiences with it?
-Kevin
 
Try this: Quit Firefox. Find a PDF file on your computer somewhere, control-clicking or right-clicking it, and then holding option. This will change the "Open With" to "Always Open With." Then select Preview from the list or else choose other and navigate to it. Now after you do this, re-open Firefox and see if the issue is resolved.

Also consider this plugin: http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginpdf/
Thanks, but I had already done that, and it doesn't change the "open" dialog in FF. The plug-in works fine, but I would like to know how to fix the "open with" box just out of curiosity.
 
Fair enough. In Firefox -> Preferences -> Content -> File Types -> Manage... is there an entry for PDFs? Can you change it to reflect what you want, or remove it altogether? It could be that at some point, the action was created based on the old app and is now floating junk. If you did turn out to have an entry for PDF there, it doesn't appear that you need one....
 
Fair enough. In Firefox -> Preferences -> Content -> File Types -> Manage... is there an entry for PDFs? Can you change it to reflect what you want, or remove it altogether? It could be that at some point, the action was created based on the old app and is now floating junk. If you did turn out to have an entry for PDF there, it doesn't appear that you need one....
Well, there wasn't an entry in there until I installed the plug-in. After I installed the plug-in, there was an entry and the entry showed (I think) 3 options: 1) Open in Default App, 2) Open with (and this showed the old app), and 3) Open with the plug-in. Just to see, I selected "Open with" and changed the app to Preview.app, and it worked. But then my file entry disappeared, and I can't figure how to get it back. Now when I click on a pdf it brings up the "Open with" dialog with Preview.app selected but no others in the list. I tried removing and reinstalling the plug-in also. How do I make the plug-in work again?

BTW, the plugin still works great in Safari. Is there any way to add file type actions to the Content/File Types/Manage preference pane in FF? It seems like you can edit existing actions but what if you need to add an action for a certain file type, and it is not in the list?
 
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