PDF-XChange Viewer and Firefox 4

[CWBillow]

I cannot for the life of me get XC Viewer to display pages in Firefox 4.

I have uninstalled and re-installed several times, but Nada. The closest I've been able to get is that I can get a DF file from my disk to display in Firefox by copying the path and then pasting that into Firefox. Then the PDF comes up on an FF tab. But I cannot get it to do it directly and especially not with online PDF's.

I'm running v2.05 build 193, and have the Files Associations set to show PDF's in the viewer.

I tried it in IE 9 as well, and, like FF 4, it sometimes opens the first one, but nothing after that.

So what could be wrong? Is there some plugin I'm missing?

Hopefully,
Chuck Billow

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello again Chuck,

Please open our stand alone Viewer, and go to Edit -> Preferences -> File associations, and click the "Display in Browser" button there. This should fix and associate the correct plugins with the correct browsers, so that you can see the files directly inside.

Also please make sure that the default action in FF for PDFs is set to open the file using a plug-in, as it might currently be set to "prompt to download and save".

Best,
Stefan

[CWBillow]

Hello again Chuck,

Please open our stand alone Viewer, and go to Edit -> Preferences -> File associations, and click the "Display in Browser" button there. This should fix and associate the correct plugins with the correct browsers, so that you can see the files directly inside.

Also please make sure that the default action in FF for PDFs is set to open the file using a plug-in, as it might currently be set to "prompt to download and save".

Best,
Stefan

Stefan;

I checked to make sure all the settings were right. Now, some of the links are opening in the browsers, yet some are opening in PDF-X externally.

Is there something about the type of link it is as to what might determine how the browser handles these?

Chuck

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

HI CWBillow,

web browsers use the mime type to determine the actions that should be taken so it is possible that 2 different files, both with a .pdf file name extension could be handled differently by the browser.

While we won't test in FF4 because it is a beta I can tell you that in FF 3.6.15 if I go to Tools --> Options --> Applications --> PDF (search) there are 5 entries listed that refer to PDF. Of these 5 3 are related to forms and 2 'plain' documents.

mime type (application/pdf) and (application/force-download) each have a different action set. I'd suggest you look at your FF preferences for applications and set the action based on the mime type.

hth

[CWBillow]

HI CWBillow,

web browsers use the mime type to determine the actions that should be taken so it is possible that 2 different files, both with a .pdf file name extension could be handled differently by the browser.

While we won't test in FF4 because it is a beta I can tell you that in FF 3.6.15 if I go to Tools --> Options --> Applications --> PDF (search) there are 5 entries listed that refer to PDF. Of these 5 3 are related to forms and 2 'plain' documents.

mime type (application/pdf) and (application/force-download) each have a different action set. I'd suggest you look at your FF preferences for applications and set the action based on the mime type.

hth

Paul, what's the difference between a form and a document, aside form the obvious (forms are fill-in)? Why would there be two plain document types? Would all have to be set for a given browser? -- So that the browser installation Amy have "missed" one?

Chuck

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi CWBillow,

PDF documents come in many variations and there are many standards defined toi match. Some PDF documents are fillable forms that are in fact XML files that are rendered as PDF documents 'on the fly' by the Reader/Viewer. One of my mime types relates to this XML content and 2 relate to fdf and xfdf files that are used in association with a PDF to store the actual form data in.

These details however are beside the point. The mime type is dictated by the web server that deliver's the files and it is up to the webmaster to set these according to popular convention. Your browser will, as I understand it, keep a record of the mime types it encounters and use an application to match if it has information about such. If not FF for example usually falls back to asking you what you want to do with the file.

So the presence of more than one mime type for a 'plain' PDF file comes down to, I believe, what your browser has been presented. If it only ever saw one mime type for a PDF then that's all that it would know.

Mime types are quite a kettle of fish - there is a lot available - and commonly only one used for PDF - (application/pdf) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mime_type - but again it is dependent on the webmaster of every site to set this and the variations are many.

I don't claim to be an expert on mime types so if anyone reading this has any input I'd be keen to hear it.

hth

[CWBillow]

Hi CWBillow,

PDF documents come in many variations and there are many standards defined toi match. Some PDF documents are fillable forms that are in fact XML files that are rendered as PDF documents 'on the fly' by the Reader/Viewer. One of my mime types relates to this XML content and 2 relate to fdf and xfdf files that are used in association with a PDF to store the actual form data in.

These details however are beside the point. The mime type is dictated by the web server that deliver's the files and it is up to the webmaster to set these according to popular convention. Your browser will, as I understand it, keep a record of the mime types it encounters and use an application to match if it has information about such. If not FF for example usually falls back to asking you what you want to do with the file.

So the presence of more than one mime type for a 'plain' PDF file comes down to, I believe, what your browser has been presented. If it only ever saw one mime type for a PDF then that's all that it would know.

Mime types are quite a kettle of fish - there is a lot available - and commonly only one used for PDF - (application/pdf) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mime_type - but again it is dependent on the webmaster of every site to set this and the variations are many.

I don't claim to be an expert on mime types so if anyone reading this has any input I'd be keen to hear it.

hth

Yeah, it does somewhat.

Thanks,
Chuck

[Paul - PDF-XChange]