This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Can't start pdf downloads automatically anymore?

  • 9 replies
  • 35 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Stanley_phd

more options

when ever I use to see a pdf file on a website, when I clicked it, firefox would automatically open the download window and request my actions to download it; but now, it doesn't even open the download window for me to choose the location of the file to be saved. Now, when I click on a pdf file, another tab would open, but the download manager would not open. Does anyone know what happen to that?

when ever I use to see a pdf file on a website, when I clicked it, firefox would automatically open the download window and request my actions to download it; but now, it doesn't even open the download window for me to choose the location of the file to be saved. Now, when I click on a pdf file, another tab would open, but the download manager would not open. Does anyone know what happen to that?

All Replies (9)

more options

There have been problems reported with the latest Adobe Reader update on Mac.
See [/questions/925119]

You can disable the Adobe Reader plugin in Firefox and use the Adobe Reader program or Preview instead.

  • Firefox > Preferences > Applications > Adobe PDF document : Use Adobe Reader
more options

thank you, but that did not work for some reason. I am still having the same problem

more options

I followed the steps and it worked, did you choose the Adobe Reader with the application logo instead of the blue one?

more options

No, that did not work. Still, when a website has a link for a PDF file and I click on it, I get nothing!!! a new, blank tab opens and no download window pops up for me to download anything.

more options

Hmm thats weird, what version of adobe are you using? Maybe you can try reinstalling the program?

more options

My automatic PDF opening also stopped.

But I don't understand the remedy stated above.

It says to do the following:

 > Firefox > Preferences > Applications > Adobe PDF document : Use Adobe Reader 

So where do I go to do this? In Adobe Reader? In Firefox?

Please help.

Stanley

Thank you.

more options

You shouldn't open the PDF file in Firefox using a plugin, but open the file externally in the Adobe Reader program.

more options

Hi cor-el,

Thank you so much for replying to my post.

But this doesn't solve the problem. Until yesterday, I could click on the PDF in Firefox, and the PDF would open using Adobe Reader. This was completely convenient, and just what I wanted.

But now I have to save the PDF to my hard-drive, and then open it from there. Very inconvenient.

Can you tell me what to do to restore things to be the way they used to be?

Thank you.

Stanley

more options

Hi everyone,

I solved the problem.

In Firefox, go to Tools > Options > Applications, then scroll down to where it says PDFPlus.Document (application/pdf), and choose "Use Adobe Acrobat 9.5 (default)".

I guess this got changed somehow to "Save File," but I didn't make any change.

Anyhow, all's well that ends well.

Stanley