PDF viewing in Safari: misfeature?

[oingoboingo]

Safari 2.0 now opens PDF documents inside the browser window. Previously, Safari would launch Preview (or another PDF reader like Acrobat if you preferred). It does not appear possible to force Safari 2.0 to revert to its previous behaviour, which I much prefer. Why? I really like Preview.app. You can get a table of contents or page thumbnails in the side drawer. You have the zoom in, zoom out, page up, page down and annotate buttons easily clickable in the toolbar. The search box is right there ready to go. Worst of all, some web sites (a lot of scientific journal fulltext gateways) open PDFs with a HTML frame on top. When you go to save the PDF using Safari's 'Save As' command, Safari gets confused and only offers you the choice of saving the page as a Web Archive or the Text Source. Basically, PDF searching, downloading and reading using Safari has taken a big step backwards.

Is anyone aware of a way to reconfigure Safari 2.0 so that it will open PDFs directly in Preview.app (or Acrobat, or whatever) instead of opening them inside the somewhat crippled PDF viewer in Safari itself?

 

[Fredstar]

Why not just open in a preview window by control clicking?
It is annoying, i hope Preview adds direct controls in the window with the pdf, viewing pdf's in web pages is painfully bad.

 

[oingoboingo]

Why not just open in a preview window by control clicking?
It is annoying, i hope Preview adds direct controls in the window with the pdf, viewing pdf's in web pages is painfully bad.

I would love to be able to do that, but many web sites do not provide direct links to the PDF file you wish to view. Many sites providing gateways to the full-text archives of scientific journals (where I spend 99% of my PDF viewing time) seem to link to the PDF through some kind of redirect link, which Safari does not recognise as a PDF (and thus does not offer the right-click option of opening in Preview).

An example of this, which will be accessible to everyone without needing a university library login, is the Australian Stock Exchange website. This link:

http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistic...rchByCode&releasedDuringCode=W&issuerCode=BHP

takes you to the list of recent announcements for the company BHP. Right-click on one of the links leading to a PDF document on this page. Notice that the right-click menu offers no option for opening the PDF in Preview. Safari thinks the link to the PDF is just a link to another web page. However, when you click on the link, you are in fact taken directly to the PDF, which pops up in a new Safari window. At least you can then use Safari's File->Save As command to save the PDF, and right-clicking on the displayed PDF now allows you to 'Open with Preview'.

I know it's possible to get things to open in Preview. However, it is now a cumbersome process that doesn't work completely as advertised, and even when it does, Safari's inline PDF viewer is extremely primitive. I think it's bad enough that it should almost be filed as a bug report.

 

[oingoboingo]

Problem solved...thanks macosxhints.com!!!

OK, great news. To answer my question, a friend has just sent me a link to this excellent little tip over at www.macosxhints.com:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050422040229515

This tip resets Safari's default PDF viewing behaviour back to using Preview.app. My sanity has been restored.

Safari 2.0 now opens PDF documents inside the browser window. Previously, Safari would launch Preview (or another PDF reader like Acrobat if you preferred). It does not appear possible to force Safari 2.0 to revert to its previous behaviour, which I much prefer. Why? I really like Preview.app. You can get a table of contents or page thumbnails in the side drawer. You have the zoom in, zoom out, page up, page down and annotate buttons easily clickable in the toolbar. The search box is right there ready to go. Worst of all, some web sites (a lot of scientific journal fulltext gateways) open PDFs with a HTML frame on top. When you go to save the PDF using Safari's 'Save As' command, Safari gets confused and only offers you the choice of saving the page as a Web Archive or the Text Source. Basically, PDF searching, downloading and reading using Safari has taken a big step backwards.

Is anyone aware of a way to reconfigure Safari 2.0 so that it will open PDFs directly in Preview.app (or Acrobat, or whatever) instead of opening them inside the somewhat crippled PDF viewer in Safari itself?

 

[MisterMe]

Safari 2.0 now opens PDF documents inside the browser window. Previously, Safari would launch Preview (or another PDF reader like Acrobat if you preferred). It does not appear possible to force Safari 2.0 to revert to its previous behaviour, which I much prefer. Why? I really like Preview.app. You can get a table of contents or page thumbnails in the side drawer. You have the zoom in, zoom out, page up, page down and annotate buttons easily clickable in the toolbar. The search box is right there ready to go. Worst of all, some web sites (a lot of scientific journal fulltext gateways) open PDFs with a HTML frame on top. When you go to save the PDF using Safari's 'Save As' command, Safari gets confused and only offers you the choice of saving the page as a Web Archive or the Text Source. Basically, PDF searching, downloading and reading using Safari has taken a big step backwards.

Is anyone aware of a way to reconfigure Safari 2.0 so that it will open PDFs directly in Preview.app (or Acrobat, or whatever) instead of opening them inside the somewhat crippled PDF viewer in Safari itself?

First off, this is Safari's previous behavior. It is controlled by the settings of the QuickTime plug-in. You have to uncheck PDF as a format that QuickTime handles within the QuickTime preferences pane. This has been how you change the behavior of PDF within MacOS X browsers for years now.

 

[Fredstar]

I agree it is very annoying and time consuming, it also quite buggy and often causes Safari to not respond. Perhaps this will change as Safari updates are rolled out, i have not heard of anyone being able to turn off Safari 2.0's previewing
That's great thanks

 

[oingoboingo]

First off, this is Safari's previous behavior. It is controlled by the settings of the QuickTime plug-in. You have to uncheck PDF as a format that QuickTime handles within the QuickTime preferences pane. This has been how you change the behavior of PDF within MacOS X browsers for years now.

No, I already checked this. The PDF check box was already unchecked in the QuickTime MIME preferences pane. Changing it didn't make any difference to Safari's behaviour (someone suggested this over at Apple's Tiger support forums). I can never remember Safari opening PDFs inline before. If it did, why is Apple touting it as a new feature in Tiger?

Regardless, the tip from macosxhints.com does the trick. Case closed.

 

[Aeolius]

I can never remember Safari opening PDFs inline before.

Safari started doing that on my Mac (pre-Tiger), after I installed Acrobat Reader 7.

 

[mkrishnan]

I would love to be able to do that, but many web sites do not provide direct links to the PDF file you wish to view. Many sites providing gateways to the full-text archives of scientific journals (where I spend 99% of my PDF viewing time) seem to link to the PDF through some kind of redirect link, which Safari does not recognise as a PDF (and thus does not offer the right-click option of opening in Preview).

I know that the issue is closed for you, but for anyone else who reads the thread...since I got used to Schubert-It's excellent plug-in, which had an icon up top that launched the PDF in Preview, I was concerned about this. *But*, not only can you right click a *link* to a PDF to open it in preview or save it (which doesn't always work, as you pointed out), but once the PDF opens in Safari, if you right click in the body of the PDF inside the Safari window, you will also get an option to open it in Preview. This should *always* work, since the PDF is already recognized and loaded as a PDF by this time.

Not quite as good as an Open in Preview button, but...

 

[gekko513]

I can't begin to tell you how frustrating it is to me when PDFs open in the browser window. I hate that behaviour.

I generally do not use the same window size when I view a PDF as when I browse. Then there are all the small differences in how to navigate a PDF file that are different from html surfing.

The same goes for movie and media clips. I hate it when movies or audio clips open in a tiny frame in the centre of the browser.

Is there a way to make Safari open video and audio clips in a Quicktime player where they belong?

 

[Mechcozmo]

...since I got used to Schubert-It's excellent plug-in...

Linkety to the plug-in. A great item to get because its free for personal use. I use it for PDFs on the web, but Preview for local PDFs.

 

[mkrishnan]

Linkety to the plug-in. A great item to get because its free for personal use. I use it for PDFs on the web, but Preview for local PDFs.

Yeah, I've been plugging that plug-in in a few threads. It's too sad to me that users who *want* PDF-in-browser on a Mac didn't know about it all this time in Panther, or worse, were using Acrobat. Eww.... I can't tell you how many times I've gotten caught on Windows by Acrobat opening that stupid window asking about doing an upgrade in the background behind everything else, and thereby seeming to have locked up the computer. Ugh.

I did the same (Schubert + Preview) until Tiger. So far I'm all native, now. We'll see how long that lasts...my main driver to use Safari is this annoying business of insanely slow textboxes in FF. I don't remember that bothering me in the beginning, but now it drives me craaazy!

BTW, for those just tuning in, Schubert-It works in FF as well as Safari.

 

[mim]

Got it!

Was just lamenting about the same problem, and stumbled on the answer.

If you Control Click (right click) on the PDF when it's open in a tab, you get a little menu with zoom controls and "Open in Preview". It opens in Preview in a snap.

Enjoy!

 

[IJ Reilly]

Linkety to the plug-in. A great item to get because its free for personal use. I use it for PDFs on the web, but Preview for local PDFs.

I'd been using this plugin for months, then I installed Reader 7.0 and it overrode the Schubert plugin, which I prefer. Does anyone know how to change this setting? I can't figure out where Adobe stores their plugin.

 

[mkrishnan]

I'd been using this plugin for months, then I installed Reader 7.0 and it overrode the Schubert plugin, which I prefer. Does anyone know how to change this setting? I can't figure out where Adobe stores their plugin.

I'm training myself to see if Spotlight gives me any more useful way to help you. I can now search a select number of folders on the HD directly from Finder. Sweet. *sets to the triumvirate of Library folders* Well, that didn't help. Hmmm...Oh, duh, because I didn't re-install Schubert. I'm looking in the wrong set of folders! Check to see if there is a file in </Library/Internet Plug-Ins>. That is where Schubert hides. There should also be a thread here on MR somewhere about how to do this that was valid in Panther. Sadly, as much as I love you, I don't love you enough to install Acro Reader on my computer to help you figure it out.

 

[Mechcozmo]

I'd been using this plugin for months, then I installed Reader 7.0 and it overrode the Schubert plugin, which I prefer. Does anyone know how to change this setting? I can't figure out where Adobe stores their plugin.

I think on their website it tells you how to get rid of Adobe's thing. I remember an article on it...

 

[wrldwzrd89]

What I would have done is open Safari's activity window, open the dropdown for the appropriate tab if I have multiple tabs open, found the PDF file, option+double-clicked on it to download it to my download folder, opened my download folder using the link in my dock, double-clicked the PDF to open it in Preview, and finally read the PDF. i had no idea about the "Open in Preview" shortcut in the Control-click contextual menu.

 

[bellis1]

Printing Problem

The other problem is that it takes forever for safari to render and to render for printing and it hijacks your browser while it is doing this (and I'm on a 1.8 G5) It was nicer in preview because it would be in the background. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Fourbin]

I dig it... I used to use a plugin to display PDFs in the browser. With Safari 2.0 it's quick and they open very fast and smoothly. Ever try opening a PDF on Winblows in Internet Explorer? Takes 10 minutes just to load!