8
1
I shouldn't have installed Adobe Reader on my Mac. But now that I have, how do I set Safari to (go back to) show PDFs using Preview (as the inline PDF display plug-in) instead of Reader? Do I need to uninstall Reader?
Update: I went ahead and uninstalled Adobe Reader. (I grew tired of constant reminders to update something I wasn't using.)
Daryl Spitzer
Posted 2009-11-09T18:25:47.713
Reputation: 7 505
4
The "Right Way" to accomplish this is actually within the Adobe Reader app. Just go into preferences, click Internet, and uncheck Display PDF in Browser. Simple and non-destructive, since Adobe will almost certainly attempt to "repair" itself when it notices the plugin file missing at the next security update.
NReilingh
Posted 2009-11-09T18:25:47.713
Reputation: 5 539
8
It is neither necessary nor sufficient to uninstall the Adobe Reader. I went also through this process and finally succeeded by (re)moving
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin.
More information can be found here.
Uwe Honekamp
Posted 2009-11-09T18:25:47.713
Reputation: 867
I, of course, had to restart Safari after deleting this file. – Daryl Spitzer – 2009-11-09T20:20:47.763
-2
You should be able to "Get Info" on a PDF (cmd+I or right click the file) and then set the default viewer for that file type.
Insomnic
Posted 2009-11-09T18:25:47.713
Reputation: 756
But this launches Preview as a separate process whereas it is possible to use Preview as an inline reader directly in Safari. – Uwe Honekamp – 2009-11-09T19:18:50.230
Right. I'll clarify my question. – Daryl Spitzer – 2009-11-09T20:15:28.897
Daryl Spitzer is asking about the Acrobat plugin, not PDFs opened from the finder. – Josh – 2009-11-09T20:43:57.187
The default setting on the file itself is what Safari uses. Setting the file within the Finder will also set it for Safari (unless Acrobat is over-riding that - which would be new to me). If you want to keep the plugin installed, I believe the following terminal command sets it as the inline viewer: defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool NO – Insomnic – 2009-11-09T21:21:11.433
Insomnic, can you verify that Safari & Adobe Reader honor the Finder setting, and verify that the default setting works as you describe? (I've already deleted the plug-in and would rather not re-install it.) – Daryl Spitzer – 2009-11-09T21:37:19.683
I tried to verify but on 2 different machines I got different results on what happens when Acrobat Reader is installed. One one machine I didn't get inline - and setting default via Get Info worked as I stated. On the other machine Reader installed and displayed inline but preview didn't (as default). So I'm not sure how this works out. It looks like Reader isn't consistent. – Insomnic – 2009-11-10T02:05:33.367
This sounds like the right answer, but I can't verify since I uninstalled Adobe Reader since posting this question. – Daryl Spitzer – 2010-07-26T03:57:27.047
2
This no longer works with a recent Adobe and is a known issue: http://superuser.com/a/254624/65618
– ShiDoiSi – 2012-11-06T09:02:08.357