Set Preview as Default Program for .PDF

Is there any way to set Preview as the default program for opening .pdf? It currently has Adobe setup as the default and I can't find a way to change it. Any help is appreciated.

Hello, and welcome to the Apple Discussion Forums!
Select a PDF file (any PDF file). Then do +File > Get Info+ (or Command-i keyboard shortcut).
In the Get Info window, where it says "Open With", select Preview. Then click +Change All.+

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After Upgrading Acrobat Reader XI to Acrobat XI Pro the previewer in Outlook and Windows Explorer doesn't work. I have to set the default program for .pdf's to Acrobat Reader inorder for the previewer to work.

After Upgrading Acrobat Reader XI to Acrobat XI Pro the previewer in Outlook and Windows Explorer doesn't work. I have to set the default program for .pdf's to Acrobat Reader in order for the previewer to work.
Can anyone recommend a solution?

If I set the default program for viewing PDF as Acrobat XI Pro the a PDF file will open with Acrobat XI Pro, but in Outlook I will get a white screen and the information bubble "This file cannot be previewed because there is no previewer installed for it" and in Windows Explorer I get a white screen in the preview pane.
My Acrobat version is 11.0.10
I am running Windows 7 Professional with Service Pack 1
My Internet Explorer is Version 11.0.9600.17691
Update Versions 11.0.17 (KB3032359)
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How to set default program for pdf files

I was wondering if anyone knows how to change the default program for opening a file type. For example I would like to set Adobe Acrobat as my default program for opening pdf files instead of preview
thanks

Hi and Welcome to Apple Discussions
Control-click a pdf file and choose "Get Info". In the Info window choose which application to open the file with and then click on the "change all" button. Voila!
Matthew Whiting

Unable to set default program for .pdf

CURRENT PROBLEM:
As show in print screen, when i attempt to set default program nth happens at all. The only way i can open any .pdf file now is by 1st opening adobe reader 9 and select the .pdf file manually
INITIAL STAGE OF PROBLEM:
Problem started after upgrading to windows 7 from vista. Windows 7 is able to recognise adobe reader 8 as a valid default program since it is in windows.old. Thus the default for .pdf is adobe reader 8 (it was installed in vista).
Subsequently, installing adobe reader 9 isof no use as it will be ignored and windows 7 will only continue to use adobe reader 8 as the default reader when i try to open a .pdf file, unless if i manually opened adobe reader 9 and selected a .pdf file manaually
However, I am unable to uninstall adobe reader 8 as the "program and feature" can only identify adobe reader 9 and does not think that adobe reader 8 exists.
ATTEMPTs TO SOLVE:
Thus, I removed windows.old by using the disk cleanup. However, I am still unable to set adobe reader 9 as the default reader. Instead, .pdf are no longer accessible/"open-able" unless I 1st opened adobe reader 9 and then selected a .pdf manaually.
I've attempted reinstalling and restarting comps etc, they dun seem to help. I suspect the OS is now only able to recognise adobe reader 8 from windows.old as a valid program directory due to some registry issues since it was initally set as the default when i 1st upgraded the OS. Now that adobe reader 8 is removed, there might be some corrupted registry somewhere that needs to be set right again?
Really need help with this. Thanks a million.

Thanks guys for showing interest in helping.
As you guys can see, there's no adobe reader when u expand. Also, I already browsed the reader just in case too. Thus expanding doesnt help. =(
Also, I cant seem to find the "file type" tab in folder options

Making Preview the Default App for .pdf Files

When I click on a .pdf file (such as one attached to an e-mail) it now opens in Acrobat Reader; it formerly opened in Preview (which I preferred). I don't recall making any changes and wondered if the "Preview as default" was changed in the recent OSX update. Can I set a preference somewhere to again have .pdf docs opened in Preview?

Hello,
To open a document with a specific application:
In the Finder, select the document and choose File > Get Info.
In the Info window, click to show the "Open with" pane.
Choose the application you want to use from the pop-up menu.
If you want ALL documents that have the same file type as this one to open with the same application, click Change All.
Carolyn

Make Adobe default program for PDF's

My son in law school just got a new MacBook and sent me the following email question.
Hey Dad,
Do you know how to set Adobe as the default app to open PDF's. Currently is set to open with "preview", and I can't figure out how to change.
The option to "use as default" is not in the preferences of either program.
Con
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Any suggestions?
Harold

Hi, I am having the same problem and the change all suggestion has not done the trick.
Here is what I did:
1. Found an existing PDF
2. GEt Info on selected file
3. Expand the Open With
4. Select Adobe Reader
5. Change all
So here is what did and did not happen
1. All PDFs have the Adobe Icon
2. Double Clicking opens the file in Adobe
3. When I download a PDF in Firefox, the only option under open with is Preview. Adobe is not in the dialog box of applications.
4. I can however save to my disk and then double click to open with Adobe
I am using a MacBook wiht OS 10.4.8 wiht Firefox 2.0 as my default browser.
Any suggestions on why Adobe is not a choice to open a PDF from a website?
iMac(intel), MacBook (intel), Powerbook Pro(intel) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

How to make Preview the default reader for pdf files online?

Hi everyone,
Many product manufacturers put their product's broucher in pdf form online. I've tried the screen shot capture method for saved pdf files but when the file won't even open online, how do I get to even capture a screen shot in the first place? Is the problem in Safari 6? Many thanks in advance.

Hi Anthony,
So, you're instincts were correct - it is Safari.....
I use Firefox as my browser (I'm not a big fan of Safari or on Windows, of Explorer). When I clicked on your brochure in Firefox, it comes up with a little window asking me what I want to do with the file - and with the "Open With" Preview" button checked.
When I do the same with Safari, it opens a new Safari window, displaying it online, but not downloading it.
So, don't know if you want to download Firefox, but did want to let you know that's why it was working differently for me!
Good luck with this - hope you are able to get it to work out for you!
Cheers,
GB

Wine + KDE -- default program for .exe on upgrade

I find that every time I pacman -Syu, WINE gets set as the default program for opening windows .exe files.
Since I'm a sysadmin for several mail servers, I occasionally have to open suspicious e-mails and see what they are, including examining the attachments. I'm worried that one day I'll accidentally double-click one of the .exe ones and that wine will run it.
I'm sure WINE doesn't have the level of windows compatibility required for spyware & viruses to do much, but it still makes me nervous.
I always go into the KDE settings and remove this file association as soon as I notice it, but I'm wondering if there's any way to make it stay permanently gone?
Is this something the package maintainer for WINE and/or KDE has any control over, or is this the wrong place to complain about it?
~Felix.

kensai wrote:Well, I am the wine package maintainer, so email me your suggestions and I will discuss with other developers. Thanks.
Oh, cool. Anyway, I think I figured out a way to fix it -- just remove this line from usr/share/applications/wine.desktop in the wine package:
MimeType=application/x-ms-dos-executable;application/x-msdos-program;application/x-msdownload;
That'll stop KDE (and probably everything else that uses /usr/share/applications as its mime provider database) from automatically associating it.
I know the .desktop file will then be technically incorrect by not listing WINE as being a handler for any mime types, but this way users will have to set it up manually if they want the ability to run strange programs by accident ;)
You could also add a message about it to the pacman install, something like
==> by default, WINE is not associated with Windows executables for safety reasons.
If you want to run ANY Windows executable by just double-clicking it (NOT recommended),
you'll have to do this as root:
echo "MimeType=application/x-ms-dos-executable;application/x-msdos-program;application/x-msdownload;" >> /usr/share/applications/wine.desktop
~Felix.

PDF Default program for Safari

How do I set Preview to be the default program for opening PDF files while in Safari? Currently every time I open one, it defaults to Acrobat. I have looked at the internet plugin folder (as suggested in another post), but that file does not exist.

I tried this:
Open Acrobat and go to Acrobat preferences. In the Categories column, select Internet. In that window, uncheck "Display PDF in window browser using Adobe Acrobat".

How do I make Adobe Reader NOT my default program for reading pdf files?

I installed Adobe Reader and made it my default program for reading pdf files. I'd like to undo that and go back to "preview" as my default.

Sure you are following instructions:

Cannot set default programs for a file extension in Gnome

After a gnome upgrade (cannot remember when), I can no longer set the default program for a particular file extension by right clicking the file in nautilus -> going to "properties" -> going to "open with" tab -> highlighting a program -> pressing "set as default".

The program I was trying to set was totem for default video playback; wine had made windows media player the default player prior. Interestingly, once I installed gnome-mplayer; the default program changed to gnome-mplayer and I was then able to switch default programs. This error may be related to wine.
Last edited by Bluerider (2013-07-05 23:07:59)

Set pages to be default program for *.doc files

Is it possible to set pages to be the default program which my computer will ALWAYS use to open a MS word document? In windows i could set default programs for specific file types, e.g. .jpg, .mpg, mp3. I did not have to assign a program to open the program every single time. As far as I can tell , I have had to request pages to open my word documents every time i open a word doc. for the first time. Although I can set pages to be the default program for that one file, i want it set to ALWAYS OPEN ALL WORD DOCS. , until further specified. Any suggestions?
thx.

Highlight a known Word document in the Finder, highlight it & choose Get Info from the File menu. In the Get Info box, click the triangle next to "Open With." Click on this drop-down menu & choose Pages. If Pages is not a choice, choose "Other" & navigate to the Pages application. Now click the "Change" button under the text that asks if you want to open all documents like this with Pages. You can then double-click the Word documents & they will open in Pages. Note that the icon for the Word files will have a plain, white icon.

How do you set default programs for all users when deploying Windows 8.1?

I have my Windows 8.1 image set up the way I want including the start screen, theme, etc. But how can I set the default programs for all users. Most of out computers are non-touch and I want the desktop apps (e.g. Windows Photo Viewer), not the store apps
to be the default for opening pictures, videos, etc. Can that be done?

Great question, this has been bugging me too!
So, I did some research by using "Set Default Programs" app in Windows 8. Then I ran the super ProcMon.exe tool from Sysinternals.com <Thanks Mark!>
After filtering out the junk, I could see some *interesting* writes to the registry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.jpg\UserChoice]
"Hash"="57y87/ogggU="
"ProgId"="PhotoViewer.FileAssoc.Jpeg"
But the "Hash" part had me concerned. I did some internet searching for the hash, and came across a post and a pointer to a blog with some answers. This is both good news and bad.
Background:
One of the problems with Windows XP is that any program can come in and party on the entire system. No, I don't want you to put a shortcut on the desktop, install a crappy IE Toolbar, and change the default file association for *.jpg files to your app, I
just wanted to play a stupid game. Since Windows 7, Microsoft has been attempting to block that functionality from the stupid applications, and give them back to the user. Take note of the last line in the ITaskbarList3 interface:
Applications cannot programmatically pin themselves to the taskbar. That functionality is reserved strictly for the user.
Of course that sucks for us IT Pros who may wish to create *default* working environments for corporate images, but there are some tricks we can do.
Solution:
This blog appears to have the answer:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mrmlcgn/archive/2013/02/26/windows-8-associate-a-file-type-or-protocol-with-a-specific-app-using-a-gpo-e-g-default-mail-client-for-mailto-protocol.aspx
New for Windows 8 is a dism command: /Get-DefaultAppAssociations that allows you to export a control case from a known good computer. Microsoft the supports importing the exported xml file via GPO. For example, before I changed the file association, .AVI
was pointing to the Modern App, after the change the /export-DefaultAppAssociations shows change to the new app:
From:
<Association Identifier=".avi" ProgId="AppXhjhjmgrfm2d7rd026az898dy2p1pcsyt" ApplicationName="Video" />
To:
<Association Identifier=".avi" ProgId="VLC.avi" ApplicationName="VLC media player" />
I am still doing some investigation to see if a GPO is required, or if you can inject the association into a local user account. Also, if you do have some Modern Windows 8 Touch Tablets, it would recomend keeping most of the Modern App defaults in place,
perhaps seperate GPO's for Desktops/Laptops vs Tablets?
-k
Keith Garner - keithga.wordpress.com

How to set Preview as Default instead of Adobe Reader

How can I set Preview as the default application for PDF files instead of Adobe Reader?

Go to a PDF file and selected it. Either "File"- "Get Info" in the menu bar or press Cmd-I. This will give you a pop up screen where you have an section called "Open with". Go there, select Preview as the application to open the document with, press the "Change All" button and confirm.

Make Acrobat the default reader for pdf-files.

Since some time (probably after I installed Mavericks) pdf-files are by default opened
in Preview. To open them in Adobe Acrobat, I can right-click the pdf-file, choose Acrobat,
and indicate that Acrobat should be the default reader for pdf-files.
This works, and after logout and login, it does still work.
But after a reboot, Preview is again the default reader.
Also, if in Finder I right-click a pdf-file, and via Get Info I configure Acrobat
to be the default reader for the specific file and all other pdf-files (by clicking
Change All), this only works for the current session. After a reboot Preview again is the
default.
How can I make Acrobat Reader the default reader for pdf-files, and make this setting
permanent?
Where is this setting saved?
Regards,
Kees.

I finally solved this, but I still don't understand how.
To begin with I have 2 hard-drives in my iMac. The OS is on the primary HD, and data are on the secondary drive. My Home directory too is on this secondary HD.
To check whether the location of the Home directory might be the problem, I copied the Home directory to the primary HD, changed the path in my profile, and did a reboot.
The next step was to configure Adobe Acrobat as the default reader for pdf-files. To my surprise, after rebooting, Acrobat still was the default reader for pdf-files.
So it looks as if this problem has something to do with the location of the Home directory.
The original Home directory was still present on the secondary HD, So the next step was to change in my profile the path to the Home directory again (pointing again to the original Home directory on the second HD), do a reboot and delete the copy of the Home directory on the primary HD.
So now the situation was back to as it was before: the Home directory on the second HD.
To my surprise now Acrobat still was the default reader for pdf-files.
And I could also change the default reader to Preview, and back to Acrobat, and this setting was saved across reboots.
I'm curious to what solved this problem, and where the setting of the default pdf-reader, or more general, the default application for file types, is stored.
So I hope that someone who reads this, can shed some light on this.

Set Preview as Default Program for .PDF

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