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Re: A Couple Questions about Adobe Reader and PDFs

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From: John E Brandt
Date: Aug 23, 2012 1:50PM


I think it depends on your OS. In Mac OSX, if you encounter a PDF, the file
will open with the text reader (which, interestingly works with VoiceOver
while Adobe Acrobat Reader does not).

In the Windows OS, if you don't have Adobe Acrobat installed, the OS will
ask you if you want to download the file or open it and give you some
choices it thinks will allow you to open the PDF file. I'm not sure if there
is a native reader in Windows 7 - I've always just installed AA Pro when
setting up a new computer.

In both OSs you can assign different applications to open different file
types. I know how to do this in Windows, but not Mac.

In Ubuntu UNIX, there is a native PDF reader which will open up PDF files.

Others have already answered the question about settings in Adobe Acrobat
about whether to open in the browser or not. I think then answer to your
last question is that there is no way to do this "on the fly" - maybe others
know of a way to have this choice. It actually sounds like a neat feature.

~j

John E. Brandt
www.jebswebs.com
<EMAIL REMOVED>
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Tim Harshbarger
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 11:03 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] A Couple Questions about Adobe Reader and PDFs

I have a couple questions regarding Adobe Reader and PDFs.

In Reader, the user has the ability to enable or disable viewing of PDFs
inside the browser window. What is the default setting for the
Accessibility Setup Wizard in Reader?

My second question is about techniques. It's been a long time so I don't
remember how to do this.

Basically, I was looking at a prototype that displays a PDF for the user.
However, if the user has disabled the viewing of PDFs in the browser window,
the user interface tells the user they need to download the Reader. What is
the technique that would allow the PDF to be viewed either in the browser
window or in Reader?

Thanks!
Tim


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