Comments on: How do I view a PDF in Firefox 2.0 on Mac OS 10.4.8?

Question: How do I view a PDF in Firefox 2.0 on Mac OS 10.4.8?

DakotaPaul — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:17:52 -0800

Trying to view a PDF in Firefox 2.0 on an Intel iMac is even more of a pain in the butt that it was in Fx 1.5.0.7. What am I doing wrong?

In Fx 1.5.0.7, when I clicked a PDF link the file would at least download automatically (sometimes) so I could view it in Preview. Now, however, clicking the link just opens a empty browser window, with the URL of the PDF in the address box.

I am aware that the Adobe PDF plugin won't work, but Schubert's PDF plugin doesn't work either. I have that plugin in both ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins and ~/Users/me/Library/Internet Plug-Ins. I'm on an Intel iMac running OS 10.4.8. Help!

By: krisjohn

krisjohn — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:27:42 -0800

Have you tried simply losing the plugins and have the PDF pop up in its own window? Even on system where embedding the reader in a browser technically works, I don't recommend it.

By: scalefree

scalefree — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:05:37 -0800

That's quite odd because I have pretty much the same setup (OSX 10.4.8, FF 2.0 minus the plugins) & don't have any problem with PDFs.

If you don't get any love here, try over in the Mozilla Firefox forum. I had my own issue with FF 2.0, posted it there & got a quick response that solved my problem.

By: myeviltwin

myeviltwin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:32:45 -0800

The Schubert plugin won't work with a Universal build of Firefox on an Intel Mac, because it's compiled for PowerPC. The only way to get it to work is to force Firefox to run in Rosetta, which, of course, causes Firefox to run much more slowly.

It's really annoying, but the least bad solution I've found is to just tell Firefox to open PDFs externally in Preview.app.

By: delfuego

delfuego — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:54:58 -0800

Yeah, there's officially no PDF plugin that works in the Intel layer of Intel Macs. So your options are to use Safari's built-in rendering of PDFs (using Preview, really), or to have Firefox open them externally. Bleah.

By: DakotaPaul

DakotaPaul — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 07:06:05 -0800

I removed the Schubert PDF plugin, and now Fx does ask me whether to save or view the PDF. Preview it is for now. Thanks, all.