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Safari cannot download pdf

P

paieye

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 14, 2008
310
15
I am using Mountain Lion on this MacbookAir, and my browser is Safari.

I have been sent a link to a pdf-file. When I steer the mouse-pointer over the link, the pointing-hand image does not appear, and clicking the link has no effect.

However, if I steer the pointer a little below and clear of the link, the image does appear, but flickering so fast that one cannot click to open the link.

The website-manager who has provided the link insists that he can open the link with Safari, provided that plug-ins are enabled.

They are enabled on this computer, too. When I go to MacintoshHD/Library/Internet Plug-ins, I see:

DivXBrowserPlugin.plugin
ebldetect.bundle
Flash Player.plugin
flashplayer.xpt
Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin
Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.webplugin
iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
npdivx.xpt
nsIQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
Quartz Composer.webplugin
QuickTime Plugin.plugin
Silverlight.plugin

Is 'Flash Player.plugin' the culprit ? What about 'flash player.xpt' ?

If I go to Safari/Help/Installed plug-ins, and scroll down to the very bottom of the list, I find WebKit Built-in PDF: application/pdf.

Can any kind person tell me how to sort this out ?
 
Last edited:
ConCat said:
Safari doesn't use plugins to open PDFs, it has the functionality built-in. Where is this link? Mail or web-based email?
Click to expand...

It is a hyperlink on a web-page. If I am asked to forward it, that may put me in difficulty, as the information in the document is likely to be confidential.
 
See if you can right-click the link, copy it and paste into the address field. If not, view the "source" html for the web page and see if you can find the link's address that way.
 
Try opening the link with a DIFFERENT browser -- Firefox, iCab, Roccat, etc.

What happens?
 
pdf

PDF is a common format widely used everywhere..the fact that the Geeks at Apple ignored that fact that Safari fails in its ability to display this, shows a tone deaf mentality. Take "copy & paste" function. It has not been improved since OS 8! C & P should permit you to do it and store it and do it again as well as
have the ability to C & P any text in any format, on any webpage including the dictionary that is included.
 
palmharbor said:
PDF is a common format widely used everywhere..the fact that the Geeks at Apple ignored that fact that Safari fails in its ability to display this, shows a tone deaf mentality. Take "copy & paste" function. It has not been improved since OS 8! C & P should permit you to do it and store it and do it again as well as
have the ability to C & P any text in any format, on any webpage including the dictionary that is included.
Click to expand...

Safari displays PDFs just fine, the OP is just having issues for some reason. It usually works well. PDF viewing actually comes naturally to macs. Quartz is based on Display PDF.
 
OP :

See if this helps ;

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader / then install it and put it in your "Utilities" folder.

The go back to the web-site you wanted to read/download the .pdf and do this:

While holding down the "Option" key , click the pdf link.

What should happen is that the .pdf file will download to your "Download Folder" , or what ever you have assigned as your download location.

OR ... It will open up in Safari , if so use the icons to download for saving.

Drag .pdf file to desktop and click on it , Adobe Reader will ask of you want to make this your default reading { reader app } , click "Yes".

Then it should open , and they will all do that ( .pdf`s that is :) )

I am running a Mac Mini 4.1 - OS-X.6.8 and a 2012 MPB/R OS-ML .2 and have done the above to both.

Good luck :D

Gary 
 
palmharbor said:
PDF is a common format widely used everywhere..the fact that the Geeks at Apple ignored that fact that Safari fails in its ability to display this, shows a tone deaf mentality. Take "copy & paste" function. It has not been improved since OS 8! C & P should permit you to do it and store it and do it again as well as
have the ability to C & P any text in any format, on any webpage including the dictionary that is included.
Click to expand...
Stop making blanket statements that aren't true.

Safari opens PDFs just fine here.

paieye: odd, just tried your PDF and it opened fine. You could also create another user account and see if you can reproduce the issue there.
 
I can see that my instructions were incomplete -- my apology.

When you have opened the link that I gave, scroll down the page to the instruction in blue to download a further document.

THAT is the one that is causing the trouble.
 
"I can open the link in Internet Explorer, but not in Opera. Here is the link, which I realise possesses nil confidentiality: https://kiosk.iristickets.co.uk/prin...ca/tickets.pdf."

I have a 2012 Mac Mini running 10.8.3.
Using Safari (Webkit version), the url above opened immediately in Safari without problems.

I then used the "save as…" option in Safari to save it to the desktop without any problems.

I then double-clicked on it and it opened with Preview -- again, no problems.

My guess -- something wrong with the software on your Mac, somewhere. Cannot say just where... (Safari extension, perhaps?).
My suggestion: use a browser other than Safari to open/save the file. Whatever one you can find that works...
 
paieye said:
I can see that my instructions were incomplete -- my apology.

When you have opened the link that I gave, scroll down the page to the instruction in blue to download a further document.

THAT is the one that is causing the trouble.
Click to expand...
Aha. Well, I did that–oddly, I couldn't click directly on the link, but if I moved my mouse cursor below it the mouse finger showed up to click to another link and it worked. The red bar in this image shows about where I had the mouse.
 
Mackilroy said:
... I couldn't click directly on the link, but if I moved my mouse cursor below it the mouse finger showed up to click to another link and it worked. ...
Click to expand...

Thank you, ... but how can anyone format such a hyperlink ? Does it mean that whoever formatted this did not format the blue text as a link, but instead managed to format a string of blank spaces a line or 2 below it as a link ?

Whatever the explanation, why can I detect the link and download the file with Internet Explorer, but not with Safari or Opera ?
 
Could be a glitch with whatever program was used to create the PDF file. I tried it with both Safari and Chrome, worked both times.
 
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