PDF's opening in Safari window not Preview

[adammacer]

I understand this is an 'improvement' introduced in Tiger but frankly it's a pain in the a*se...

Is there anyway to set preferences so PDF's open in Preview again?.. Can't find anything..

Ta

A

 

[gauchogolfer]

I understand this is an 'improvement' introduced in Tiger but frankly it's a pain in the a*se...

Is there anyway to set preferences so PDF's open in Preview again?.. Can't find anything..

Ta

A

Select a .pdf file (any will do) in the Finder, and hit cmd+I to pull up the properties window. Under "open with" select Preview, and then choose, 'use this program for all file types'.

There you go.

 

[Over Achiever]

I can't really think of a solution besides when it loads in Safari to right click it and open it in Preview ... =(

I would delete the plugin and then it would just download the pdf, unless you have Safari set to automatically open "safe" files after which it would open in Safari. Is that what you had before Tiger?

 

[adammacer]

Thanks.. but now I can't get a pdf to appear on desktop to get info on despite setting to in General in Safari preferences being as such..

?

A

 

[adammacer]

Panther used to open PDF's in Preview by default.. Perfect as a lot of those I view are multi-page documents and I could skip easily past irrelevant pages..

A

 

[gauchogolfer]

Are you talking about pdfs that you've downloaded to your computer or ones that are online?

 

[Over Achiever]

Thanks.. but now I can't get a pdf to appear on desktop to get info on despite setting to in General in Safari preferences being as such..

?

A

File -> Save will save it to wherever you'd like, otherwise instead of clicking on the link to see the pdf, right click the pdf link and "Download Linked File".

 

[adammacer]

Err.. sorry.. numpty question.. what's the difference?.. All PDF's I used to view from online sources would download automatically (download pane would 'run') and appear on my desktop.. Now open direct to Safari page and nothing on desktop..

A

 

[gauchogolfer]

Err.. sorry.. numpty question.. what's the difference?.. All PDF's I used to view from online sources would download automatically (download pane would 'run') and appear on my desktop.. Now open direct to Safari page and nothing on desktop..

A

I'd say go ahead and follow OverAchiever's advice and just download manually to the desktop, then open in Preview like normal. I'll check and see what normal behavior is for me for Safari dealing with pdfs.

Edit: yep, for me the pdfs open in Safari as well if I just double-click on a link. I usually intend to keep them for later, however, so I've always done an explicit 'save as' then used Preview.

I hope all this helps.

 

[Over Achiever]

This is how I usually deal with pdfs ...

I let it open in the Safari window, then right click on the pdf and do "Open with Preview". That way I can flip through pages easily, and if I want to save the PDF, in preview I just do a "File - Save As" and save it to disk. Otherwise I leave it in the tmp folder and forget about it, the tmp folder eventually gets cleaned out.

 

[gauchogolfer]

This is how I usually deal with pdfs ...

I let it open in the Safari window, then right click on the pdf and do "Open with Preview". That way I can flip through pages easily, and if I want to save the PDF, in preview I just do a "File - Save As" and save it to disk. Otherwise I leave it in the tmp folder and forget about it, the tmp folder eventually gets cleaned out.

Oh, sure, go ahead and give some good simple advice. Thanks for making me look bad .

 

[adammacer]

Thanks v much but!... the way it worked on Panther was perfect.. I'd double-click a link, I'd get an icon for the pdf on my desktop for saving or trashing and a Preview window displaying it..

Don't wanna have to remember to right-click this, save as that.. just want it as it was before!..

So why aren't I getting a pdf icon on my desktop?..

A

 

[Over Achiever]

So why aren't I getting a pdf icon on my desktop?..

A

It's because when the pdf opens in the Safari window, it saves the pdf to a hidden tmp folder. The only way to get the pdf on the desktop is to instead of clicking on the link, to right click it and "Download linked file" ... I can't think of any other alternatives.

I haven't looked for the Preview plug in if there is one, you can try a spotlight search if you'd like.

 

[adammacer]

Tried all the above.. got pdf on desktop, got info, changed settings as described... no difference.. grrrrr..

Thanks anyhoo

A

 

[live4ever]

To disable PDFs in Safari completely open Terminal and input:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

Then in System Preference>QuickTime>MIME Settings... under the image drop down make sure PDF is unchecked.

 

[adammacer]

Woah.. that's a bit advanced for me.. So I input that code into the first Terminal pane that opens?... Looks like some kind of event log to me..

Ta

A

 

[kalibahlu]

To disable PDFs in Safari completely open Terminal and input:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

I have a similar problem, except mine is with streaming video. Used to be that if I clicked a link on a webpage to open a standalone video player, such as the link below the embedded steaming media window on tappedintoelephants.com, it used to open Windows Media Player very nicely, but now, since I made the mistake of installing Flip4Mac (and since uninstalled it!), now my browsers ALL only see Quicktime, and don't even see WMP. I've already unchecked boxes in QT MIME settings, and I've uninstalled and reinstalled my browsers and WMP, but nothing works, so I'm wondering in anyone knows a code line I could try in the terminal window to help this situation? Thank you for your help!