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.

Similar Messages

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?

Preview not opening pdf files unless they have an pdf extension

Preview will not open pdf that does not have a pdf extension. If I give a valid pdf file a random extension like .xxx, preview opens without windows. If I give it .jpg it opens with a questionmark in a window. If I give it pdf it open without a glitch.
Why cannot Preview detect whether a file is open-able or not an not give a **** about extension. This is not windows but a unix system
The problem exist when a pdf file is downloaded by firefox and not given a .pdf extention in the downloads folder. In Safari the file is opened without problems inside Safari.

Yeah, but Preview wont open the file at all, even through the open dialog, all files not associated with preview are greyed out. Shouldn't a program open a file if told to?
Yes, I agree with you. I also could not open the files unless I changed their extensions.
Also the "file" command has no problem finding out it's a pdf. I believe its an obsolete thing specifying filetype on extension, and not on content. Is is possible to get preview to open the file depending on content and not on extention.
Like I said, I think this was a conscious choice that Apple made with OS X, but I'm not sure why the decided to go that way (maybe posting on one of the dev lists would give you the answer to that).
I haven't been able to get Preview to open files once I've changed the file extension...

Preview not opening PDF's in Safari

I had a trial version of Adobe Acrobat and since it's expired and I've removed it Preview won't open PDF's that I find in Safari like it used to, instead I get a dialogue box asking to find the Acrobat plugin (I've deleted it, oops).
I have Preview as my default PDF reader (command and 'I' when a PDF is selected confirms this) but can't fathom out why it won't open PDF's direct from the net.
It's getting to be a pain saving each PDF and opening it off the desktop so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Oops!! In my last post I used "dashboard" instead of "Dock". Sorry about that. I am new to the Mac. Here is my last post with the appropriate terminology.
"This worked for me as well. The procedure I had to do to make it finally work after I deleted the Adobe plugin from "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins" (I didn't have the file in my account folder), was to quit Safari on the "DOCK" (not just closing the browser window - for us former Windows users). Then I had to empty the trash. When I had initially moved the plug-in to the trash and had not actually quit Safari from the "DOCK", Safari was still accessing the plug-in.
Once I quite the program, emptied the trash, and restarted Safari, though, I was back in business!!!!"

After installing/uninstalling Adobe, Preview not opening PDFs

I installed Adobe Reader 8 just to be able to read one lousy document on the Internet. (It would not open past a screen that said I needed 8.0).
I noticed that it noticeably slowed the opening of ALL pdf documents from the Internet -- Preview was much faster. I deleted Adobe Reader from the Apps folder, but all pdfs are STILL NOT opening with Preview anymore and they're still all slow to open. I tried putting Preview on the doc--didn't work.
What can I do to get rid of Adobe and restore Preview as the default?
Thanks!

Interesting! A combination of the two suggestions worked!
I did a right-click with my mouse, went into "Open with" and "Other" then choose Preview and checked "Always Open With." This worked with the pdf files only on my computer, but not for pdfs off the Internet.
Then, per the first suggestion, I deleted just that one plug-in and Internet pdfs now open with Preview as well! Just what I wanted!
Now I feel confident about deleting Adobe. Thanks you two!!!

Preview not opening PDF files

Hi. For a while now (to when I was on Lion as well as Mavericks) my Macbook Air has been unable to load PDF's in Preview. When I right click a PDF and Open With, Preview isn't even listed. When I go to Other, Preview is even greyed out in the Recommended Applications list. I can select All, and then select Preview, and Preview loads its icon on my dock, but nothing gets displayed. If I load Preview and try to load a PDF from within it, the PDF file is greyed out. I was told a while ago to install Adobe Reader to at least be able to read PDF's using another app until this is fixed. I was hoping Mavericks install was going to fix this, but it has made no difference. I have also tried repairing disk permissions to no avail. My friend has also tried putting their Preview app on a USB stick and for me to try their app, but it does exactly the same thing on my Macbook, yet it works perfectly on theirs.
Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Never mind. I uninstalled Adobe Reader, then found another app I'd downloaded a while ago was set as the default reader, which basically just scanned the file. Uninstalling that resolved the issue. Preview was then set as default and PDF's were then viewable in Quick Look and Preview.

My macbookpro is not opening pdf sites from safari or firefox, it goes to the address but just gives me a black screen. I can however open a pdf file that I have saved on my HD, it opens on preview. any thoughts?

My macbookpro is not opening pdf sites from safari or firefox, it goes to the address but just gives me a black screen. I can however open a pdf file that I have saved on my HD, it opens on preview. any thoughts? osx 10.6.8

Back up all data.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, the copy the selected text to the Clipboard (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 (command-V) into the text box that opens, then press return.
From the folder that opens, remove any items that have the letters “PDF” in the name. You may be prompted for your login password. Then quit and relaunch Safari, and test.
I've seen an unconfirmed report that the "Silverlight" web plugin distributed by Microsoft can also interfere with PDF display in Safari, so you might need to remove it as well, if applicable.
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.

Preview is not opening PDF's Correctly

Hi there,
My Preview is for some reason not opening pdf's in the way they should look (for instance the text on a letter has turned into symbols, another has the £ signs as dots etc). It's really weird as it's always worked fine. The problem isn't with the pdf's themselves, as they appear perfectly well on my iphone.
Any ideas? I've searched around various forums and Googled this, but it doesn't appear like anyone's had the same problem.
If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it, as I didn't realise quite how many pdf's I get sent!
Many thanks
Simon

I've had the same issue with just one PDF that I got sent. It seemed not compatible (yet) with Preview. I installed Adobe PDF reader and it worked. Afterwards I put Adobe in the trash again, as it took so much space on my hard drive. If you have the issue with just some PDF files, you might simply try Adobe Reader.

Safari will not open PDF

It use to work fine, but lately, Safari will not open PDF files from certain sites. It is OK when a site downloads a pdf to open it. It downloads it and Preview then opens it. But for other sites such as my bank web site, it opens the pdf within Safari and I just get a blank page.
It use to work, any idea how I can fix that?

Your problem isn't solved, you just added to it. Safari is perfectly capable of displaying PDF files without using any third-party applications or plugins, but you just installed one. Acrobat Reader is bloatware and totally unnecessary, so if you want to use Safari's built-in capability, do this:
1. Quit Safari if it's running.
2. Launch Acrobat Reader and go to Preferences > Internet and uncheck the box for the section at the top labeled "Display PDFs in browser using:".
3. Go to HD/Library/Internet Plug-Ins and delete the Adobe Reader plugin.
4. Enter this command in Terminal, press Enter, then quit Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool false
Restart Safari and try dragging a PDF file from your Mac directly into an open browser window; it should render without any problems.
Mulder

Adobe reader will not open pdf files I have saved as, or, export as pdf to my desktop (latest Maverick). The same file does open when I am on the source website (i.e. user manuals etc.). Why?

Adobe reader will not open pdf files I have saved as, or, export as pdf to my desktop (latest Maverick). The same file does open when I am on the source website (i.e. user manuals etc.). Why?

iMac G4, Mac OS X (10.4.9)
Make sure you have the latest Adobe Reader installed for your OS.
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?platform=macintosh&product=10
Did you try using Preview. If you control click on the PDF on your desktop you can use the "open with" option.

Since I have connected my iPad with the MacBook through ICloud I have problems in Preview of opening PDF- and JPG-files. Does anyone have a solution for this?

Since I have connected my iPad with the MacBook through ICloud I have problems in Preview of opening PDF- and JPG-files. Does anyone have a solution for this?

I'm not sure I understand the connection between iCloud and this problem. Is it simply a problem of coincidental timing (ie, the problem happened after you set up iCloud)? If so, there's almost certainly no connection between these two events.
Where are you getting the files you're trying to open, and what specifically happens when you try to open them?

Can not open PDFs

I just upgraded to Mountain Lion and can not open PDFs. For instance, I am trying to download a form from the DMV and the extension is a PDF. Nothing opens and the page is gray. I didn't have this problem with Snow Leopard. I have Adobe Reader 9.5.5. I can open PDFs on my iPad but not the iMac.

Have you tried opening the PDF file with Preview?
OT

Safari does not open pdf

Just began to notice that Safari does not open PDF files anymore. PDF's do not automatically download either. One solution I checked was to removed anything with PDF from internet plugins in LIBRARY, but I have none. I was directed to install Adobe Reader. I already have Acrobat Pro installed. Shouldn't preview be what is needed to view PDF? Sugestions?

What I ended up doing was to to follow these dirs:
ellecee55
Feb 15, 2013 3:19 PM (in response to phreaky_d)
Hi,
I also installed Adobe Reader because an ebook I downloaded wouldn't open without it.
I then chose Adobe Reader as my default. When I later uninstalled it using the Trash Me app-which usually clears everything out-I couldn't get Preview back as the default.
I went to the "Library/Internet plug-ins" path and trashed the two Adobe Reader plug ins that were there. I used Secure Empty Trash, and then shut down completely and did not check the box to reopen any windows. Then I restarted the Mac.
I not only shut down Safari, I closed all applications and shut down the Mac completely being sure to uncheck the "relaunch with windows open" button. When I turned the Mac back on, I opened Safari and went to an online PDF that I had been trying to open previously to test the app. It opened this PDF using Preview and showed it in Safari.
I then tested using a PDF from my files and it opened in Preview.
Quit Safari.
Open the Finder. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder
Type of copy / paste: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins
Click Go then move the Adobe PDF Browser plugin from the Internet Plug-Ins folder to the Trash.
Relaunch Safari to test.
This worked for me and Safari now reads PDFs as is always did.

Adobe Reader will not open PDF in browser simple answer.

I just had this problem and was able to work through it with the help of tech support from TD Ameritrade. The fix is simple so read on. After uninstalling and reinstalling all things adobe and trying other recommendations on these forums I was stumped. I called my broker tech section since I couldn't open their reports and we identified what my specific problem was. For me, and I imagine some of you this will help and prevent a lot of wasted time.
Nothing was wrong with my Adobe Reader. My problem was that I have a 64 bit operating system and both of my default browsers were 64 bit browsers. I did not know my internet explorer default browser was the 64 bit one until the technician that assisted me informed me that a recent windows update made all 64 bit systems default to 64 bit internet explorer browsers. You cannot change that default by choosing between 64 bit and 32 bit, because you can only choose internet explorer. That explains why my attempts to open with a 32 bit browsers always failed. I also tried with Firefox thinking it was 32 bit and it failed as well. The technician informed me Firefox is a 64 bit browser and then it made sense. I guess the recent Adobe reader update caused a change that no longer allowed my 64 bit system and 64 bit browser to open PDF's through the browser. The technician who assisted me has a 64 bit system and only uses 64 bit browsers and can still open PDF's through those browsers. That confused us for a while until we realized he had his Adobe updater turned off and therefore had not been exposed yet to the update that originated my problems.
****ANSWER FOR MY PROBLEM*******The quick answer is use Google Chrome or some other 32 bit browser. If you set a 32 bit browser as your default, the PDF's will open. You cannot set Internet Explorer 32 bit browser as your default if you have a 64 bit system and also have 64 bit Internet Explorer. The windows update prevents you from doing it. At least that is my understanding.
The bottom line is I have the newest Adobe Reader on a 64 bit system and can open any web PDF with Google Chrome set as my default browser, because it is a 32 bit browser. The new Adobe Reader will not open PDF's with a 64 bit browser in Vista. A 64 bit system is fine as long as you use the 32 bit browser to open your PDF's in Vista. I hope this helps some avoid some headaches. I wish it had been posted when my problem first arose.
I think you can use a 64 bit browser in Windows 9 or later, but for Vista the above applies.

Yes I can create a short cut to internet exp. 32 bit on my desktop and I can even be using Internet expl. 32 bit, but when I try to open a PDF with adobe reader it won't work with internet exp. as my default browser b/c windows will always choose Internet exp. 64 bit which isn't supported yet by adobe reader. With google chrome as my default browser windows can't choose an unsupported 64 bit browser in its place b/c google chrome doesn't have a 64 bit version.
My post was for those people who may not have realized yet that windows would not ever choose Internet expl. 32 bit over Internet expl. 64 bit if both exist on their system. For them it is easiest to just choose a default browser that only has a 32 bit version.
If I understood your reply correctly, you were telling me how to create a shortcut to Internet exp. 32 bit on my desk top. However, having that shortcut on my desk top and opening my browser through it will not prevent the problem of windows choosing my Internet exp. 64 bit browser for pdf's I try to open from the web. Thank you for your response, but I think the problem that I have tried to explain does exist for many users and can only be fixed by using a 32 bit browser that is not Internet explorer as your default browser. At some point if windows fixes the update that always chooses Internet expl. 64 bit over Internet expl. 32 bit, then this will all be irrelevant.
Thanks
Sent from my iPod

I need to make a pdf document, made in photoshop, 'page turn' and then add it to my website. I know I can do this in indesign but indesign will not open pdf files for some inexplicable reason. Any ideas how I can do it without completely starting again?

I need to make a pdf document, already made in photoshop, 'page turn' and then add it to my website as an e-brochure. I know I can do this in indesign but indesign will not open pdf files for some inexplicable reason. Any ideas how I can do it without completely starting again?

Hello waitingone,
please try this (all terms are translated from my German programs to my best knowledge):
1. Did the creator of the pdf file enable the import options?
2. See import options: choose an other visibility option for your layer.
3. Let you show the import options and click into one with a black background and try these out (often a gray is selected).
4. See trimming: try the different modes there. Often works: "Media".
5. Is the pdf file (eg from Word) correctly created?
6. Is the PDF file protected? >>> no import possible.
7. If that does not help, store the pdf file in Acrobat, repair possible errors, run the PDF Optimizer before placing in InDesign.
Good luck!
Hans-Günter

Preview not opening PDFs

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