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

Cuireadh an snáithe seo sa chartlann. Cuir ceist nua má tá cabhair uait.

PDF Viewer is completely inaccessible

  • 2 fhreagra
  • 5 leis an bhfadhb seo
  • 12 views
  • Freagra is déanaí ó seakook

more options

Firefox for Android can't seem to find its internal PDF viewer in its recent versions.

The expected behavior should be, when opening a PDF file from any source, to prompt the user for the app they want to open it with when a default isn't set (works as intended) with apps such as Firefox, Chrome, Google Drive's native viewer, among other possibilities. When the disk path to the file is entered into the address bar, Firefox should automatically open the file natively.

The actual behavior is that all *but* Firefox is listed in the prompt, nor can I it be found in the device settings. It is reasonable that it's an issue with Android, so I will open a thread with Google as well. When the disk path to the file is entered into the address bar, the user is incorrectly asked to download the file again. (???)


Firefox Daylight 83.1.0 (Build #2015776401) AC: 63.0.9, fc54c566e GV: 83.0-20201112153044 AS: 63.0.0


Samsung Galaxy A11 Kernel version: 4.9.186 Android 10 One UI Core 2.1

This bug is very disconcerting; Being able to do it all from the browser was one of the biggest things I loved about Firefox for mobile, particularity with reading PDFs; it was the only reason I switched from the Google default!

Firefox for Android can't seem to find its internal PDF viewer in its recent versions. The expected behavior should be, when opening a PDF file from any source, to prompt the user for the app they want to open it with when a default isn't set (works as intended) with apps such as Firefox, Chrome, Google Drive's native viewer, among other possibilities. When the disk path to the file is entered into the address bar, Firefox should automatically open the file natively. The actual behavior is that all *but* Firefox is listed in the prompt, nor can I it be found in the device settings. It is reasonable that it's an issue with Android, so I will open a thread with Google as well. When the disk path to the file is entered into the address bar, the user is incorrectly asked to download the file again. (???) Firefox Daylight 83.1.0 (Build #2015776401) AC: 63.0.9, fc54c566e GV: 83.0-20201112153044 AS: 63.0.0 Samsung Galaxy A11 Kernel version: 4.9.186 Android 10 One UI Core 2.1 This bug is very disconcerting; Being able to do it all from the browser was one of the biggest things I loved about Firefox for mobile, particularity with reading PDFs; it was the only reason I switched from the Google default!

All Replies (2)

more options

Hi

Firefox for Android does not currently have a built in .pdf viewer, but this is something that we may look at for a future update.

more options

So I also am frustrated by the inability of Firefox for Android (v86) to open a .pdf web address with the Android built-in PDF Viewer directly (ie without having to select a train of menu selections). It seems it should be a reasonable fix to have a setting preferance that allows the Firefox browser to open web address .pdf files in the Android "PDF Viewer" app. (There had been a nice Add-on for this, but new "Firefox for Android" does not support this highly useful feature.) I regularly visit a site that links to a frequently updated .pdf document. I don't need to download it really, I just need to view the document, then close it or refresh.