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 open pdf within Firefox anymore? What changed? Used to work fine

more options

On my bank website tried to open pdf statement and doesn't open. Also tried to open link to a pdf from a websearch and won't open. This used to work fine in Firefox. What's changed?

On my bank website tried to open pdf statement and doesn't open. Also tried to open link to a pdf from a websearch and won't open. This used to work fine in Firefox. What's changed?

Saafara biñ tànn

Thanks. I don't have a "Preview in Firefox" option, but while there I changed the setting to open pdfs using Acrobat Reader which fixed the issue. Appreciate the quick reply.

Best. H

Jàng tontu lii ci fi mu bokk 👍 0

All Replies (4)

more options

Hi hdse, does Firefox give an error message, or just nothing happens?

Could you check your setting for PDFs and see whether it is set to "Preview in Firefox" to view PDFs in a tab: View PDF files using Firefox’s built-in viewer.

If you do not have a "Preview in Firefox" option, or it doesn't help, try "Always ask" so you get a choice of whether to Open using your external reader or Save.

Any difference?


Do you have any add-ons that block popups? Some sites may launch PDFs into a popup window and overly aggressive popup blockers could be a problem in that case.

more options

Saafara yiñ Tànn

Thanks. I don't have a "Preview in Firefox" option, but while there I changed the setting to open pdfs using Acrobat Reader which fixed the issue. Appreciate the quick reply.

Best. H

more options

Still strange that it worked fine until today.

more options

I had this issue and this fixed it for me. Goto Preferences/General/Applications

Scroll through the list to find PDF and make sure the option right of it is set to "Preview in FIrefox". I'm using a Mac but being tis is a FireFox interface it should be similar on Windows