Changing the default pdf reader

Madigania

Wow. Since Endnote 7 - what's that, six years ago - I have periodically revisited that application on my hard drive but always ended up giving up and formatting bibliographies by hand. With 150 to do on my latest paper, after my latest failure with Endnote in desperation I did a web search and discovered Zotero. It took a couple of days to re-find all the sources and download the citations (awesome!) but then one click and the job was done. Learning curves to functionality: Endnote - 6 years and counting, Zotero - two days and done.

Question: how do you change the default pdf reader? Under Firefox preferences, pdfs don't seem to be one of the file types given an option; the written documentation suggests otherwise but I'm not succeeding.

[I want to change the default to Skim, a Mac only software popular for viewing and annotating pdfs.]

Thanks

julou

Under mac, the pdf reader is a firefox setting...
So you have to tell FF to use skim to display your pdf; and zotero will do it too.

ModernLife

"Question: how do you change the default pdf reader? Under Firefox preferences, pdfs don't seem to be one of the file types given an option; the written documentation suggests otherwise but I'm not succeeding."

In order to make pdf downloading and opening part of FF's prefs, you have to first download a pdf file. When you're asked what you want to do, check the box at the bottom of the dialog box that says "automatically do this from now on" or whatever it actually says -- I forget exactly.

THEN when you go into Prefs > Content > File Types you'll see PDF as one of the listed file types and you can now set the default app to Skim.

Eric Weir

I want to use Skim, the PDF reader and annotator, to open PDFs in my Zotero database.

The instructions above are not working for me. FF doesn't ask me what I want to when downloading a PDF. It simply opens a window for saving the file. There is no option to check "automatically do this from now on."

I've made Skim my default PDF reader system-wide, but it has no effect on Zotero. It still uses Adobe Acrobat.

adamsmith

you can change FF's pdf reader in
Prefs > Content > File Types
you can also use skim just for files opened from Zotero:
see the LauchNonNativeFIles hidden preference:
http://www.zotero.org/support/hidden_prefs

gustafbstrom

How about if I'm using Chrome? I checked the settings for the extension, but couldn't see anything about changing the default. I'm on Mac and also have the Mac client, but there are no settings available there.
I'd prefer to not change system-wide, as it's only in Zotero I want to use Skim instead.

emilianoeheyns

How do I set the default reader in Zotero 5 without changing the system default?

adamsmith

General tab of preferences --> Open PDF using --> custom

Then select the tool you want to use (this is newly available since somewhere around version 5.0.36)

emilianoeheyns

sweet, thanks

dragonfly

I read this thread recently and I installed quicklook

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/310135

it provides another option. Quick Look appears on right clicking pdf.

bwiernik

You can also type the Space bar to QuickLook