From MozillaZine Knowledge Base

I'm using WinXP SP2, Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0, and Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0.2.

Acrobat does not hang; Firefox does.

The instructions above do not work. Changing Acrobat's preferences makes no difference.

Tools > Options > Downloads > File Types produces an empty list.

When I click File Types' Plug-Ins... button, I can uncheck "PDF". Until i quit Firefox, "PDF" is missing from the list. Once I restart Firefox, it reappears...checked again.

The other feature that doesnt seem to be included with IE is when Acrobat is loading, its causes other instances of firefox to stop responding as well.

speed up

IMO, if the second variant of speedup indeed works it should just replace the first one. --asqueella

Indeed, that's a very neat trick if it does work… --Mozcerize

On disabling nppdf32.dll by renaming

I edited the article today to change the suggested rename from "nppdf32DISABLED.dll" to "Xnppdf32.dll" because I remembered that Netscape/Mozilla load plugins with names beginning with np and ending with .dll. I did a groups.google search just now and found multiple posts like this one suggesting to rename netscape-style plugins to something other than np*.dll Alice Wyman 16:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Newsgroups: netscape.public.mozilla.general
From: Ralph Fox <snip>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 11:29:32 +0000
Subject: Re: Firefox won't download PDFs
<snip>
> >     [*]  If you rename it, rename it so that the name does not
> >          start with "np" and end with ".dll"
.
> I renamed it and all is well.  Why the restrictions on the final
> name?
Mozilla, Firefox, and several other browsers (like Opera) use
Netscape-type plug-ins.
.
On Windows, Netscape-type plug-in files are named np*.dll.
The "np" stands for "Netscape Plugin".
.
When the browser checks for plug-in files on startup, on Windows
the browser looks for files with names of the form  np*.dll.

Oops, that was my bad; sorry. (I was attempting to make it obvious that the file had been renamed by the user so that no confusion arises when they stumble across it again several months later!) However, now I look at my own setup, I see that I renamed my file to nppdf32.dll.DISABLED, which explains why it works on my PC! I'm happy to run with your suggestion. --Mozcerize 17:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

no worries, I'm just glad I didn't step on anyone's toes :-) Alice Wyman 19:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Install

This article seems to be missing information on how to install it. It's fine if it's just a link to an external site under the heading "install", but I'd wager that's what most people are looking for.--Np 21:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

rewrite suggestions

Using an alternative PDF viewer

Isn't the following incorrect; isn't it possible to have both Foxit and AR installed but only one with a Firefox plugin?:

"Before installing a third-party viewer, you should uninstall all existing Adobe (Acrobat) Reader installations." --American Finn 16:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I found this topic the foxitsoftware forums: Can Foxit and Adobe Acrobat be on same computer? (the moderator's answer was yes). I went ahead and removed the sentence about needing to uninstall Adobe Reader from the article. Alice Wyman 21:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Followup: I found this with a groups.google search which advises to disable the Adobe Reader browser plugin (nppdf32.dll) since the Adobe plugin will take precedence when both Adobe Reader and Foxit are installed. Apparently, the free version of Foxit does not include a browser plugin, only the "Pro" version does [1] [2]. I edited the article to include this information, referring back to the section on disabling the plugin. Alice Wyman 01:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest moving this article to "Viewing PDF files" and explaining that pdf is an open file format. Then Foxit and Adobe Reader and other viewers can be more correctly presented as equal alternatives instead of talking about AR as the "real thing" and the others as third-party viewers. We wouldn't like to see Firefox being called a third-party html viewer either. I'm also not sure the following needs to be said this way to sound like a direct call to stick with AR:

"Since third-party viewers are neither made nor supported by Adobe, some PDF files may not work and some functionality may be missing."

More in keeping with the goals of Mozilla and the open source movement would be something similar to what we say about FF:

In case one is using an alternative to Adobe Reader and this is missing some functionality, one can download pages where this functionality may be important and open them with Adobe Reader by right-clicking and choosing Open With. --American Finn 16:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I just added that to the Adobe_Reader#Using_an_alternative_PDF_viewer section . Alice Wyman 22:28, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Changing the article name

I don't think we should rename the article to "Viewing PDF files" as suggested above. For one thing, the same can be said about the Quicktime and RealPlayer articles, since there are alternate players available. This article links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format which says that Portable Document Format (PDF) is an open file format created and controlled by Adobe Systems and also, Anyone may create applications that read and write PDF files without having to pay royalties to Adobe Systems; Adobe holds a number of patents relating to the PDF format but licenses them on a royalty-free basis for use in developing software that complies with its PDF specification. [1]. If you follow the reference link you see that Adobe really is the real thing, as far as the PDF file format goes. Alice Wyman 21:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Speeding up PDF display - Manual procedure 2

"An alternative method that does not break Adobe Reader functionality is to make the plugins optional. Reader will then only load them as required, making startup quicker."

It would seem the second speedup method is technically different from the first only due to the location, not the name of the new folder.

We should probably also add this info: ARSU places the new folder in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\optional and leaves EScript.api, EWH32.api, reflow.api, Search5.api, and search.api (and not printme.api) in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\plug_ins --American Finn 16:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

If anyone is going to use this procedure it will be an Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 user whose system doesn't meet the requirements for Adobe Reader 7 or 8. I edited the article to have "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\plug_ins" as the sample path and a single manual procedure, with a reference link to http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/acroread.html#win-ar6-speed Alice Wyman 14:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)