PDF-XChange Viewer Captures Mozilla SeaMonkey. HELP!

[RNFolsom]

I really don't want to uninstall PDF-XChange Viewer, but it is making a mess of my life. I am a novice user of Win7sp1 64-bit. I am setting up a new Dell Precision M4700 laptop. My browser is Mozilla SeaMonkey (current version 2.19). I am trying to download a PDF manual from Eset. But instead of letting me download it, SeaMonkey insists on displaying it. But at the top of the display are the Tracker Software options, tools, settings, --- I'm too upset to learn the name, but it is a horizontal line of stuff that I used to see when I had opened PDF-XChange Viewer. So Tracker's software apparently is somehow involved.

In short, Tracker Software's PDF-XChange Viewer, which until now has been very useful (for a substantial number of years), is running my browser.

I have been using personal computers since 1984, and before that IBM mainframes (I USED them; I am not a programmer or computing project designer). But I never before had software intervene automatically into other software without any permission.

I would very much appreciate any help.

R.N. (Roger) Folsom
Paid user of PDF-XChange Viewer

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Roger,

Thanks for the post and sorry to hear about your troubles! You should be able to solve this by opening the Viewer and going to Edit --> Preferences --> File Associations and unchecking the box that says "Display PDF in Browser", then hit Apply and Okay.

Cheers, hope that helps!

[RNFolsom]

Will:

I followed your instructions. But at File Associations, under Make PDF-XChange Viewer (it's the ONLY PDF viewer on the laptop, except for WordPerfect X6 which I installed yesterday and which does some PDF stuff that I don't know anything about yet), Display PDF in Browser was NOT checked. I then tried to download the file, but it still wouldn't do so. So I went back to Display PDF in Browser and checked it, used Apply, unchecked it, and used Apply again, in hopes that I would wake something up. But the problem remains.

It turns out that the problem was in SeaMonkey, not PDF-XChange Viewer. A study of SeaMonkey's Help folder reminded me that that in SeaMonkey's browser menu, the second item is Edit. From there, I selected Preferences > Browser > Helper Applications. At that location one of the Applications is PDF Document. Its default setting was to Always Ask [whether to view or save] the PDF file. But that hadn't worked to let me save (i.e. download) the PDF document.

So I changed the setting from Always Ask to Save, and the PDF file downloaded fine. My immediate problem was solved.

But I wanted the Always Ask to to work. So I went back to Preferences > Browser > Helper Applications > PDF Document and changed the setting from Save back to Always Ask. This time when I tried to download the PDF document, a dialog box let me choose between Open With (where in my case the only choice was PDF-XChange Viewer) and Save File. That was what I am used to!

And it worked: Using a different PDF document, I first chose Open With (PDF-XChange Viewer) and got a separate PDF-XChange Viewer window instead of something in a SeaMonkey window. Then I did it again and got the same dialog box, selected Save, and downloaded the different PDF Document with no problem.

Thanks very much for your very rapid response, and for your suggested help which got me going.

R.N. (Roger) Folsom

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hi RNFolsom,

Glad to hear all is up and running!

And if you'd please let me add a few words for the "automatic display" inside Sea Monkey. This is a plug-in that we provide for browsers, that if enabled (in your case apparently silently and without you wanting it) will download the file in a temp folder and display it directly in the browser. So if it's a file you just want to check quickly and don't want to save - just open and read it and then close the browser tab, and on the next restart windows will take care of the temp folder and remove the file silently without you having to bother with deleting it.
Most people find this convenient - but of course you have the option to customize it to work the way you want and I am happy you managed to do that yourself!

Cheers,
Stefan

[RNFolsom]

Stefan:

My reply is a bit late, but I wanted to thank you for explaining that PDF-XChange Viewer has a "plug-in . . . for browsers, that if enabled . . . will download the file in a temp folder and display it directly in the browser. So if it's a file you just want to check quickly and don't want to save - just open and read it and then close the browser tab, and on the next restart windows will take care of the temp folder and remove the file silently without you having to bother with deleting it."

That was very interesting.

But for SeaMonkey (and maybe Firefox) users, when they select a PDF file, the dialog box that I described in the third post on this thread lets the SM user choose between merely viewing the file or saving it. If the SM user selects viewing, the user's PDF viewer (in my case, PDf-XChange) displays the file in a separate window. After completing the view, my recollection is that the file can still be saved. But if the SM user doesn't want to save the file, all he has to do is X-out of the the viewing window and the file disappears --- no need to wait for the next windows restart (or logoff, I assume). My guess is that MS Internet Explorer doesn't do that (a guess because I use MSIE only for MS updates), which may explain why Tracker needed to set up the facility that you have explained.

It's often interesting to learn how something that you don't use works anyway. So thanks for your explanatory response. I no longer think that black magic is what let my customary settings return.

R.N (Roger) Folsom

[Will - Tracker Supp]