Make Safari open PDF in preview automatically, by default

Is there any way I can make Safari open (download + view) PDF links in Preview?
I know that Safari opens PDFs in its own viewer, and then I can use the semi-opaque 4-button toolbar at the bottom of the window (when the toolbar is visible) to Open PDF in Preview, but that's a fair bit of extra work from a UI perspective.
I click the link to the PDF, and the PDF opens in a new Safari window.
I move the mouse to the bottom of the page, wait for the gray toolbar to appear, then click the Open PDF in Preview.
(This is assuming the toolbar shows itself, which for some reason it has stopped doing on some PDFs.)
Now I've got a Preview window with my document, plus the useless Safari PDF view, plus my original webpage.
It's tedious and cumbersome.
Yes I know I could option-click the PDF link to automatically download the file, but that doesn't automatically open the file after it is downloaded. Either way I have to mess around to open the file as I'd like to.

Right-click on the PDF document; select Get Info from the pop-up menu; in the lower half is a section labeled Open With. Select Preview from the choices listed, then click Change All... to make Preview the default appp for PDF documents.
Message was edited by: Rysz - added screenshot

Similar Messages

Open PDF in Preview - automatically in front of other PDF files?

I'm really fond of the 'open PDF in Preview' option in Safari. However, I have noticed that when a pdf file is already open in Preview before downloading a new one, the new one does not automatically come in front of the one that was already open; instead, I usually have to alt-tab to get the file I've just downloaded in front. Is there any way to remedy this?

Pahu, thank you. After reading your reply, I found a discussion thread called "preview opens fileopen dialog each time it starts", and the complete answer was there. Basically, just open System Preferences – iCloud, and uncheck "Documents & Data". I did get a message that all corresponding data on my Mac would be erased but the data would remain in iCloud for use on iPhones, etc. Since I don't keep any "documents & data" on iCloud (I only keep contacts, calendar, notes, etc. -- those are separate from documents & data), I accepted this. My problem was immediately fixed.
Thanks so much.

Is there a way to make Safari open PDF pages without opening Finder and select Reader from my applications folder?

Simple, When I want to open a .pdf page from the web, I get Finder to open and I have to go to my applications folder to pick up Acrobat reader, Is there a way to have Safari doing it all by itself, Preview, or any other program?

Right or control click a PDF file you have on the hard drive then click: Get Info
In the Get Info panel click the pop up menu next to: Open with
Select the app you want to open PDF files from the pop up menu then click: Change All

How do I make Safari open PDF's using installed Adobe Acrobat 7.1.0

I would like to force Safari 3.1.2 to open all PDF links using Adobe Acrobat 7.1.0. How do I accomplish this? I have no problem making Safari use the Adobe Reader, however, I would like to use the full Adobe Program so I can save and download interactive PDF forms I have filled out on the web. Using the Adobe reader, you can only download the form itself - all supplied information using the form's interactive features are lost when the filled in form is downloaded.

Hello, Carolyn:
Thank you for your suggestions. Unfortunately, it is not working for me. I have both Adobe Acrobat v. 7.1.0 and Acrobat Reader v. 9.0.0 running on my computer. In either program's preferences both programs are availabe when I choose the program to display PDF files in the browser (Safari). There is no problem setting Safari's PDF handling to the default value.
When I choose Acrobat Reader to be the program to display PDF files in the browser, Safari will indeed use Acrobat Reader. However, when I choose Adobe Acrobat v. 7.1.0, Safari does not use the Adobe Acrobat program to display the PDF file, rather the file is displayed by the PDF handling features built in to Safari. I have found no way to make Safari use the full version of Adobe Acrobat. PDF files residing on my computer opens without difficulty using my copy of Adobe Acrobat v. 7.1.0. Do you have any other ideas that would help solve this problem?
RaFoFa (Ragnar)

How do I make safari web page go direct to "Open pdf in preview" without having choose it manually

how do I make safari web page go direct to "Open pdf in preview" without having choose it manually

Well crap! Internet explorer goes direct to actual pdf, would'nt you know it, safari wont! I will have to change my pdf order form to include instructions on how to find that toggle thing at the bottom so it wont wig out safari users.
Kind of *****, if people dont know they have to click the open in preview choice, my form wont work.
Thought maybe it was an HTML issue that could be overidden.
Thanks for your answer.
LeeCM

When I open a pdf, it used to open in Preview. Now my iMac requires Adobe Reader, but I prefer Preview. How can I make my iMac open pdf in Preview again?

When I open a pdf, it used to open in Preview. Now my iMac requires Adobe Reader, but I prefer Preview. How can I make my iMac open pdf in Preview again?

If an image opens in a different application but you want it to always open in Preview when you double-click it, do this one time: Control-click the file, let go of the Control key, press the Option key, then choose Always Open With > Preview. Or, select the image file, choose Get Info from the File menu, then change the "Opens with:" pop-up menu choice to Preview.
Mac Basics: Preview app views and edits PDFs and images

Safari cannot open PDFs in Preview

When I view a PDF in Safari and I choose the "Open PDF in Preview" icon it opens instead in Adobe Reader, not Preview. Control clicking gives the only option as "Open with Adobe Reader xx.x.x". I don't have the AdobePDFViewer.plugin, either at the root level or my user level of Library/Internet Plug-ins. So, how do I get a PDF to open in Preview when viewing it online in Safari?
To be clear, I'm not talking about opening a PDF from the Finder.
I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and Safari 5.1.10. Reader is at 10.1.3.

Back up all data.
If Adobe Reader or Acrobat is installed, there should be a setting in its preferences such as Display PDF in Browser. I don't use those applications myself, so I can't be more precise. Deselect that setting, if it's selected. Otherwise do as follows.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, the copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
/Library/Internet Plug-ins
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-G. Paste into the text box that opens (command-V), then press return.
From the folder that opens, remove any items that have "Adobe" or “PDF” in the name. You may be prompted for your login password. Then quit and relaunch Safari, and test.
The "Silverlight" web plugin distributed by Microsoft can also interfere with PDF display in Safari, so you may need to remove it as well, if it's present. The same goes for a plugin called "iGetter," and perhaps others.
If you still have the issue, repeat with this line:
~/Library/Internet Plug-ins
If you don’t like the results of this procedure, restore the items from the backup you made before you started. Relaunch Safari again.

Open PDF in Preview in Safari 5.1

I'm using Safari 5.1, and recently, I found out that the "Open PDF in Preview" option does not work. I would click the button several times, and it would not bring up Preview. I don't have Adobe Reader or any other PDF reader on my MBP. The only way I can view the PDF in Preview is to first download it and then open it up in Preview. Does anybody know why this is happening? Is this a problem with Safari 5.1?

Gp tp /Library/Preferences - Internet Plug-Ins.
Move the PDF Browser Plug-in and any Adobe plugins to the Trash.
Quit then relaunch Safari to test.
Right or control click a PDF file you have on the hard drive then click: Get Info
In the Get Info panel click Open with.
Select Preview then click: Change all
Might be a good idea to read this even if you don't use Adobe Acrobat just so you will be aware.
Apple Safari 5.1 and Adobe Reader/Acrobat Advisory

Opening PDF in Preview

Hi,
In pages, when you open the print dialogue there is a PDF button. The top item on the list is:
Open PDF in Preview. Clicking this used to do just that, open the document in preview. After
updating to Snow Leopard, it now opens in Adobe Acrobat. I'm not sure why or how to change
this.
I want to open the PDF in preview, not in adobe acrobat.
thanks for any help you can give.

I'm am truly sorry if I seem impatient. This thing has just annoyed me all day. Thank you for your comments but what you are talking about is setting a default program to open all the PDFs on the computer. This is NOT what I want to do. I know about the feature you are talking about and that is NOT what I'm looking for.
Before updating to Snow Leopard my default PDF application was Adobe PDF Pro. Any PDF I made and opened, did so with that program.
BUT from Pages, when I would press "Open PDF in Preview" it would do so.
SO, if I made a PDF, it would open in Adobe Pro. But, WITHOUT MAKING a PDF, I was able to open
my pages document as a PDF using the "Open in preview" button. I did not make that document a PDF, I did not use quick look. In Pages I pushed command P, selected the options under PDF, pressed "Open in Preview." At that time it then opened my document in Preview and I had a wide variety of formats to save it in, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PDF etc. From there I often saved the document as a JPEG (for reasons to long to explain here.)
SO, at present Adobe Pro is set as the default PDF opening program as it should be. But, from Pages, I want to be able to save in various formats, in the past I have done so from the drop down menu mentioned above. That was true for two years up until this past week when I changed operating systems. I simply want to regain the lost functionality.

Screen resolution changes after opening PDF in preview and is enlarged.

Screen resolution changes after opening PDF in Preview and is enlarged.

Do a backup.
Quit Preview.
Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Remove the following. You may not find them all.
Containers/com.apple.Preview
Preferences/com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist
Preferences/com.apple.Preview.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist
Saved Application State/com.apple.Preview.savedState
Credit Linc Davis for this solution.

"Open pdf in Preview" opens extra dialog box

From any app, when I select PRINT: Open pdf in Preview, the Preview app opens and correctly displays the desired page or file but... it also opens the "Open" dialog box allowing me to select a file to open. I simple click on CANCEL but this is an annoyance. Anyone have an idea how I go about tracing down the cause of this strange behavior? The Console reports the following 2 lines:
1/13/13 8:49:39.978 PM MTLAgent[370]: Injecting MTL into com.apple.Preview...
1/13/13 8:49:40.005 PM MTLAgent[370]: warning: failed to get scripting definition from /Applications/Preview.app; it may not be scriptable.

Pahu, thank you. After reading your reply, I found a discussion thread called "preview opens fileopen dialog each time it starts", and the complete answer was there. Basically, just open System Preferences – iCloud, and uncheck "Documents & Data". I did get a message that all corresponding data on my Mac would be erased but the data would remain in iCloud for use on iPhones, etc. Since I don't keep any "documents & data" on iCloud (I only keep contacts, calendar, notes, etc. -- those are separate from documents & data), I accepted this. My problem was immediately fixed.
Thanks so much.

How to make safari open in full screen in Mountain Lion

I can not make safari open in full screen mode since I upgraded to Mountain Lion
It used to open in full screen mode, now every time I have to make it full screen each time.
Helps appreciated
Salih

gunafly wrote:
You can achieve this by going into system preferences>general>uncheck "close windows when quitting applications." The apps will open fullscreen next time, even after a reboot. One caveat, the window will open in the last session left...
Hope this helps!
Thank you, this resolved my question as well.

Why won't Safari open PDF-documents after uninstalling Adobe Reader?

Hi.
I wonder why Safari won't open a PDF-document after I uninstallet Adobe Reader. Prior to my installation of Adobe Reader, Safari opened PDF's without any diffyculty.
I've tried to reset Safari but it didn't seem to help at all.
What do I do?
Thanks
Mike

There might be a residual plug-in interfering with Safari's PDF opening capabilities.
Installed plug-ins are listed via Safari > Help menu.
They are located in
/Library/Internet Plug-ins
and
~/Library//Internet Plug-ins
(tilde is home folder)
charlie

After i changed the setting in application tab in options : open pdf doc by adobe by default, the "Ask" window still pop up every time. How to fix this ?

<blockquote>Locking duplicate thread.<br>
Please continue here: [[/questions/913026]]</blockquote>
after i changed the setting in application tab in options : open pdf doc by adobe by default, the "Ask" window still pop up every time. How to fix this ?

How do I fix this problem ...javascript (cid) applications.

How to make Safari automatically open PDFs in Preview?

Well, the subject says it all:
I would like Safari to download PDFs when i click on them and then open them automatically in Preview.
I don't want any plugins nor any Acrobat.
Does anyone have any idea?
(I have tried acrobat and the schubert-it plugin, neither of them has really satisfied me, so i have removed both of them.)
I have, of course, looked in this forum for any hints, but, although there seems to be a lot of posts about the "safari & PDF" topic, i didn't find anything solving my question.
Any suggestions or hints will be appreciated.
Best regards,
Gabriel.

Not sure why you prefer to open the PDF outside of
Safari?
i think it's more convenient:
Acrobat is too slow; and when viewing PDFs inside Safari i don't have all the nice keyboard shortcuts for zooming, flipping pages, copying stuff from the PDF is not as smooth, etc. It's just the overall look-and-feel that's much nicer in Preview, IMHO.
Anyway, I guess you're saying Preview does not open
after the PDF download.
Yes, that's what i meant.
Have you tried accessing the
info panel for one of the PDF files and changing the
"open with" selection to "Preview" - then, "change
all"?
Now i am not quite sure what you mean.
In Finder, when i double-click a PDF it opens fine in Preview.
Also, in the info panel, Preview is set for the "open with" for all and any PDF.
Best regards,
Gabriel.

Make Safari open PDF in preview automatically, by default

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for