Preview will no longer open PDFs in Safari

Question

Hello Everyone,
Lately, when I open links PDFs, they will not open in Safari (only a blank page). I have to control click the link to download the file, but I want it to go back to normal by opening within my Safari browser.
I used to have Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 on my computer, but have since uninstalled it because of its slow response in opening files. I also had Acrobat Writer 5 on my machine at one point and was fairly happy with its performance when I needed it, but in an effort to fix my problem with PDFs not opening in Safari, I uninstalled it too.
In the beginning, I was very careful to not allow Acrobat not be default, but I think one of my co-workers used my machine and said yes to Acorbat's annoying message to make it default. Since then I am stuck with this issue. In any case, I used AppZapper to remove both Reader 7 and Writer 5 thinking my computer would be forced back into using Preview.
After that did not work, I tried deleting the preferences in my User library, but that has not worked either. I also tried a tip in Terminal to make the file at least download like they used to do pre-Tiger... No use either.
Does anyone know how I can reset my preferences for PDF links online to open in my Safari browser? I have already set Preview to be default on already downloaded files.
Also, I coped with the Ctrl-Click way for some time, but now i have a pdf link in an email and the file will not download that way. Hence I want it to work the way it did out of the box.
Please help.

Answer 1

You wrote: "No, by my I meant my Home > Library > Internet Plug-Ins folder. I double-checked and it is empty."Well, that's not the correct folder. Again, the Adobe plug-in would be in the Macintosh HD > Library > Internet Plug-Ins folder.
2. You wrote: "Ok, assuming I did uninstall Adobe Acrobat Reader incorrectly, how can I go about fixing that? Do I reinstall it and reuninstall?"You can try the instructions in the Adobe KB document "Manually remove Acrobat (6.x and 7.x on Mac OS X)", which states it also addresses Adobe Reader. Unfortunately, they appear incomplete since they also omit the plug-in I discussed. Also, the steps for using Find under the heading "On Mac OS X v10.4.x" are flawed because step "g" does not work due to a design feature/bug of Spotlight, in which Find is implemented under Tiger. Essentially, the issue is that the Visible/Invisible search criterion does not work.
At the worst, if the problem remains thereafter, you may have to reinstall Mac OS X via Archive and Install.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
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