TechNote (Archived)

Configure Safari to display PDF files using Acrobat 7 viewers (Mac OS X)

What's covered

System requirements

Configuring Acrobat to view PDF files in Safari

Known issues

Self-healing

System requirements

Adobe PDFViewer for Mac OS X will not run correctly on a system that doesn't meet the following requirements:

-- Safari browser

-- Mac OS X v10.3 and later

Adobe recommends Mac OS X version 10.3.4 and later and Safari version 1.2.3 (which comes with Mac OS X v10.3.5) and later. Adobe Acrobat browser components are not installed on Mac OS X v10.2.8 even though Adobe Acrobat 7.0 supports that version of the operating system. Acrobat does not support viewing PDF files within other browsers on Mac OS X such as Internet Explorer.

Configuring Acrobat to display PDF files in Safari

Drag the Acrobat package from the CD (or disk image) to the Applications folder to install Acrobat. The first time you start Acrobat you will be prompted to accept the end user licence agreement (EULA) and register Acrobat. After you accept the EULA, Acrobat runs a Self-healing procedure which checks for any Acrobat components that need to be installed in other applications. The self-healing process installs the Adobe PDFViewer plug-in file and creates the Safari Framework links.

If you need to update your copy of Safari in order to view PDF files, then you should do the following:

1. Completely remove the old version of Safari.

2. Install the latest version of Safari.

3. Remove the Adobe PDFViewer.plugin from the Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder.

4. In Acrobat run Help > Detect And Repair and choose Adobe PDFViewer.

AdobePDFViewer.plugin

The main file used by Acrobat to view PDF files in the Safari browser on Mac OS X is the Adobe PDFViewer.plugin; this file is installed in the Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder.

Safari Frameworks Directory

The Safari Frameworks directory is created when you first run Acrobat or Adobe Reader, and the files inside are required to view a PDF document in the browser. The Frameworks folder is inside the Safari Contents folder. Do not delete this folder; it is harmless if you are not using Acrobat or Adobe Reader to view PDF documents and deleting the folder may cause problems running Safari.

Known issues

The following issues have been noted:

Choose application.

On the Macintosh in the Acrobat Internet Preferences next to Display PDF In Browser the user may choose which Adobe Acrobat application Safari should use to read PDF files. This is for the situation where a user has both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat installed. It will also work with future versions of Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

Object tag and Embed tag not supported.

Safari and Acrobat do not support the Object or Embed tags. You will see the alert message, "Operation Not Permitted".

Frameset links require two clicks.

When you view a PDF file in a frameset, you may have to click twice on the link in another frame to execute it. This is expected because the first click gives the frame focus and the second click opens the link.

"Failed To Load" alert message appears in Safari window.

When you use Safari browsers on Mac OS X v10.3.4 or earlier, Safari displays the alert message, "Failed To Load" in the top of the browser window just after the URL. This message is expected and does not display with Acrobat in Mac OS X v10.3.5 or later.

Safari uses a separate instance of Acrobat.

When Safari opens Acrobat it opens a new instance of Acrobat. If Acrobat is open already, then Safari opens another instance of Acrobat. You will not see this second instance of Acrobat in the Force Quit menu. The user can open and do anything in Acrobat while viewing PDF files in Safari. Since the instances are separate, if both are running at the same time (that is, you have a PDF open in the browser and you are running Acrobat), any preferences set in one instance (for example, in a PDF file displayed in the browser, or from the Acrobat/Preferences menu) will not be reflected in the other instance until you restart the other instance.

Self-healing

If the AdobePDFViewer files are deleted, then they will be self-healed after you start Acrobat again after the files were deleted. You can also fix Safari manually by choosing Help > Detect And Repair > Adobe PDFViewer. You may need to fix Safari manually, for example. if you have installed Mac OS X v10.3.x after having Acrobat and Mac OS X v10.2.x installed.