.PDF icon preview to open

Is it possible to have preview open .PDF files but use the proper Acrobat icon or the file?
I like the quick view that preview provides but when looking at a folder that has all preview icons it is hard to tell what the file is.

Take a look at CocoThumbX:
http://www.stalkingwolf.net/software/cocothumbx/
It will make custom thumbnails for PDF files. Use the app's preferences to set the PDF icon to use "whole page as icon" for the best result.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

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Pdf icon preview randomly not showing on desktop

I have no idea why this has been happening, but for some reason, the pdf preview icon on my desktop shows the preview of some pdf's in the icon, and at random, only shows the generic icon on others. Quick Look works fine.
This phenomenon is constantly changing among pdf files every time I reboot my computer. Any help would be very much appreciated!

I have this problem in the stacks. One time it displays the icon right and some minutes later wrong. It's very annoying.

Attaching ONLY a PDF icon, not the open file to a mail message.

I recall that I once found a Menu item for limiting the attachment of a PDF to its icon only and NOT the opened file. I can't find it now. Any idea welcome.

I had it and now it is gone. Don't know exactly when but recently (OSX 10.8.5). Perhaps I am not the only one with this experience. It seemed to work for all attachments too ala MS Exchange. Changing to plain text did not help me.
Does the recipient get it the same way it is sent - not having tested? Yes I'm lazy.
Is there a way to set attachment as icon by default without a third party tool?

Pdf files will not open

Hi,
I have viewed through this forum and did not find a problem with similar symptoms.
I upgraded from Adobe Reader 8 to Reader 9 and then the .pdf files will not open.
Actions and Observations/Symptoms:
1) After I clicked onto the pdf document icon - nothing happens.
2) I right click onto the pdf icon and chose "open with Adobe 9" and get the same response. Nothing happens.
3) I go to the the start menu - select Adobe Reader 9 - and the program does not even open.
=======
I have since removed Reader 9 and re-installed Reader 8. I tried the above actions and got the same behaviour. Not a whole lot happens. It seems like something is broken after the first initial upgrade.
In fact - I went to the folder:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader and
tried to open Reader by double clicking onto "AcroRd32.exe" and there was no response.
I'm completely lost! Can anyone share a fix to my problem?
Thanks,
Mike
Some hardware & OS background info: Toshiba Laptop - 1.58 Ghz, 3GB RAM - M/S Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 3

I can't explain the cause to the problem - but I found two "work-arounds" to get me running again.
Workaround #1:
I found another program (and there are many) on the web that will also read .pdf files. I downloaded "Foxit Reader" , installed it and it works. I can now view my pdf docs!
However - I got so used to Adobe Reader - I really wanted to get Reader working again.
Workaround #2:
I re-installed Adobe Reader 8.
Instead of running the usual Adobe installation script that I got from the web, I copied (from another PC's C-drive) the "Reader 8.0" folder and all its contents into my current C- drive directory structure C:\Program Files\Adobe\.
I re-booted the PC and can now open my pdf files using Reader 8.
It seems to work - but I don't know what the effects of this installation method will have in the future - or the interaction it will have with other programs. I guess when I need to remove the program in the future - I'll have to do it manually, since it doesn't even register in the "Add or Remove Programs" under Control Panel.
===============
Hope this helps out anyone else with similar symptoms.
In the original problem, it's unfortunate that there were no error messages whatsoever when I tried opening the pdf files. It was like as if Reader was not even activated or even loaded on my PC. I'll bug me for a while - but at least I got Reader working again (for now....)!
Mike

Change .pdf icons to generic icon instead of preview image

How can I change the icon of a .pdf on the desktop to the more generic red and white Adobe logo instead of the little preview picture? With the old-style icon it's easy to determine what's a .pdf - with everything a little preview now (which is too small to tell anything, at least for me) I have to actually read the file name to see what type of file it is.
Not the end of the world but it would be nice to change.
thanks

What app do you want your PDF files to open with when they are double-clicked?
If you click on the Desktop, type Command-J, and in the Desktop's view-options window uncheck the box for "Show icon preview," you will convert all the Desktop icons to whatever image the default "Open with" app has provided. If you have set Adobe Reader as the default app for PDF files, the icon will look like this:
!http://i55.tinypic.com/2r4hf6p.jpg!
If you have set Preview as the default app, the icon will look like this:
!http://i51.tinypic.com/264noea.jpg!
I don't know of an automatic way to have PDF files display an Adobe icon and still have them open in Preview when double-clicked.

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.

Download and then open PDFs with Preview instead of viewing PDFs within Safari

hello, I am running Safari 6.0.2 and since this update PDF files are automatically opened within Safari. This seems to be a new feature. In my older version of Safari whenever I clicked a pdf it was downloaded to my "Downloads" folder and then automatically opened with Preview. The option open "safe" files after downloading in Safari -> Preferences -> General is ticked. So as soon as a download a PDF file it should automatically be opened with Preview. However, I cannot figure out how to download a PDF file from a google link. I googled and people suggested to use alt + mouse click on the google search result link to download the PDF. However, whenever I tried this instead of downlading the PDF file it downloads a .html file which is then apparently not opened. Also using the option "download linked file" or "download linked file as" only downloads a url.html file and not the PDF. I searched and searched for any possible solutions but cannot find any. I am really suprised that no one has yet really complained about that. Any ideas of how to fix that problem?

I had a similar probem after updating to the newest Safari -- and I posted that question on the forum this morning. Like you, I didn't have any adobe plug-ins. then I read another post that made sense:
find a pdf document that you know opens in Preview. Do a command-I on that document's icon. Then you'll see 1/2 way down an item that says "open with Preview" - click on the arrow beside that, then beside it you'll see "use this application to open all documents like this one" Under that, you'll see "change all" -- and it will change all pdfs to automatically open with Preview instead of Adobe.From then on Safari worked perfectly
Then I wondered why I didn't have the Adobe plug-in that people were telling me to disable - so I downloaded Adobe Reader again - looked in the library and sure enough there was the plug-in - so I went ahead and disabled the Adobe pdf plug-in (by dumping it in the trash).
so far so good -- first time that Safari 6.02 has worked for me since I installed it.

Preview not opening PDFs

PREVIEW used to work perfectly earlier. But last few days it has started giving security error, when trying to open ANY PDF file:
The file “xxxxxx.pdf” couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it.
when I do GETINFO to check the security permissions - it all set to Read & Write.
This image itself (created by me on this mac) can not be opened by Preview. But I can use Adobe or ColorSync to open the files.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try the action that you're having trouble with again. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

I can't open a pdf in Preview anymore. How do I fix this?

When I open a pdf, a dialog box opens up with the following message: "The file "File Name" could not be opened. It may be damaged or use a file format that Preview doesn’t recognize." I tried it with Adobe Reader and I got the same message. I am running 10.10.1 on a 2013 Macbook Pro.

Back up all data before making any changes. Please take each of the following steps until the problem is resolved.
Step 1
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 by pressing command-V, then press return.
From the folder that opens, move to the Trash any items that have "Adobe" or “PDF” in the name. You may be prompted for your login password. Then quit and relaunch Safari.
Step 2
Do as in Step 1 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.

Can't open any PDF in preview - it freezes. Help

When I try to open a PDF in preview I get the first page and the loading symbol and nothing else. The application freezes and that's it. I end up having to false quit and I can't read the document. Any ideas. This is driving me crazy and I need to read PDFs for work and I work at home. Please help.

23/04/2015 22:16:55.327 CoreServicesUIAgent[270]: Error -60005 creating authorization
23/04/2015 22:16:56.757 com.apple.Preview.TrustedBookmarksService[904]: Failure to de-serialize bookmark data file.
23/04/2015 22:16:57.484 Preview[902]: ***storageTaskManagerExistsWithIdentifier:withIdentifier failed: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application." (The connection to service named com.apple.nsurlstorage-cache was invalidated.) UserInfo=0x7f8ca295a890 {NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.nsurlstorage-cache was invalidated.}; {
NSDebugDescription = "The connection to service named com.apple.nsurlstorage-cache was invalidated.";
23/04/2015 22:16:57.557 com.apple.WebKit.WebContent[905]: Application does not have the 'com.apple.security.network.client' entitlement.
23/04/2015 22:16:57.559 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.WebKit.WebContent.74E0A305-32CC-4FA0-B7B6-54C0B4D34A23[905]) Service exited with abnormal code: 1
23/04/2015 22:16:57.581 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.
23/04/2015 22:16:57.606 sandboxd[284]: ([902]) Preview(902) deny mach-lookup com.apple.nsurlstorage-cache
23/04/2015 22:16:57.651 Preview[902]: SCNetworkReachability server not available
23/04/2015 22:16:57.651 Preview[902]: SCNetworkReachability server not available
23/04/2015 22:16:57.680 Preview[902]: socket(PF_ROUTE) failed: Operation not permitted
23/04/2015 22:16:58.149 sandboxd[284]: ([902]) Preview(902) deny mach-lookup com.apple.SystemConfiguration.SCNetworkReachability
23/04/2015 22:16:58.227 sandboxd[284]: ([902]) Preview(902) deny system-socket
23/04/2015 22:17:02.399 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca06d7980 146451 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/Bloomberg%20text%20for%20facebook.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.399 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca06e1b40 147715 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/CHARITY%20DETAILS.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.399 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca28b0bb0 148751 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/DCT_Letterhead.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.399 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca06eece0 150023 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/Got%20to%20Sing%20sponsorship%20template. docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.400 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca28b6db0 151559 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/letter%20of%20intent.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.400 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca28b9840 151319 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/MDC%20SPEECH%20facebook%20v%20short.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.400 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca06f1930 153611 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/MDC%20SPEECH.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.400 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca06f3d20 156943 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/press%20release%20utrophin.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.619 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca28a8e90 144427 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/Proposal%20to%20Board%20on%20Utrophin%20U pregulation.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.657 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca06ee950 149047 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/Return%20travel%20data%20as%20of%209th%20 March.docx>
23/04/2015 22:17:02.684 Preview[902]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f8ca29100f0 157715 file:///Users/User/Documents/DCT/comms/social%20media%20for%20Bllomberg%2030%20O ctober.doc>
23/04/2015 22:17:32.385 Mail[225]: No worthy mechs found
I can see it mentions authentification, but i could use it fine before the last update. What do you think? Many thanks indeed

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

32 bit YouTube fix breaks "Open PDFs in Preview"

Hi everyone -
Like (apparently) the rest of the forum, I haven't been able to open YouTube videos with Safari without opening in 32 bit.
Unfortunately, when I open in 32 bit, PDFs are then automatically opened in Adobe Reader.
I tried redoing the old fix for this - downloading a PDF file, get info, "Open in Preview", change all - but this doesn't change anything for me.
Anyone else have this problem? Anyone have any solutions?

unless safari's built-in pdf support is disabled via a defaults command, or modifying the plist - what app opens a pdf on the mac hasn't anything to do with what happens when you click most web-based pdf's.
Like changing what app opens html files somehow stops Safari from handling them when you click a link.
The plugin thing seemingly wasn't working, switching to 32 bit made it work, and it did the job intended... to open pdf's in the browser.

Can't zoom PDFs in Safari nor open in preview

The Toolbar referenced by Apple help below no longer appears after the last update to Safari:
View PDF files
When you click a link on a webpage for a PDF file, Safari displays the PDF in your browser window and provides a toolbar to help you view the file.
Open Safari if it is not already open, and go to the PDF page you want to view.Open Safari
To see a toolbar, move the pointer to the bottom-center of the page. If you move the pointer away from the toolbar, it disappears after a moment.The toolbar has four buttons. Point to each button to see what it does.
To change the font size, click the “Zoom in” and “Zoom out” buttons.
To view the PDF file in Preview, click the “Open PDF in Preview” button. After Preview opens, choose Help > Preview Help for more information about viewing PDF files.
To save the PDF file on your hard disk, click the “Save PDF to download folder” button.

I just updated my grandfather's computer (probably 10.6... I forget), and now he's experiencing the same thing. Interestingly, if I go to a test PDF found randomly on the web, it opens and shows the 4-button toolbar. But when we open one of the PDFs from his TD Ameritrade account, they open with no toolbar (and none to be awakened by moving the mouse down bottom center).
I question the value of opening PDFs in Safari at all when there's a great Preview readily available, but I put that on a different post.

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.

Preview not opening pdf documents

Why would Preview not open a pdf document?
I double click on a document and Preview starts but the document does not open. I can open the document in Safari. I have other user accounts and the same document is working properly in all of them. The sharing & permissions looks like it is correct showing me to have Read & Write privileges.

Thanks, slug. I might have been born at night but it wasn't last night. I tried that and it still isn't working. When I did the repair permissions I did notice though that there were, literally, pages and pages and pages of "ACL found but not expected" lines in tons of System and hidden folders. I mean, repair permissions took almost 3 hours!! What's up with that?

.PDF icon preview to open

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