Can I "View Snapshot" of PDF file within browser?

CuriousGeorge
Situation: I downloaded a bunch of references and PDFs from JSTOR. I want the PDF files to open up within Firefox, however they are opening up in an external Acrobat window. Is there some setting I can change so they will open up in the browser, as "snapshots" of web pages currently do?
  • noksagt
    Do you have a PDF viewer plugin for Firefox (e.g. do ALL PDFs open in an Acrobat window)?

    When you view the snapshot PDF, Zotero just passes the file's URL to Firefox.
  • CuriousGeorge
    I have the "PDF Download" plug-in installed for Firefox. It is currently configured so that PDFs automatically open in a new Firefox tab. For example, if I navigate to a PDF article in JSTOR, it opens in a new tab. When I download that citation and the associated PDF from JSTOR into Zotero, I get a "JSTOR Full Text PDF" entry with the original URL information and the "View Snapshot" button. Clicking the URL reloads the article (slowly) from JSTOR. Clicking the "View Snapshot" button activates a window asking me if I want to open the file "o.pdf" with Acrobat or some other application (I imagine many people instruct this pop-up to always use Acrobat for opening PDFs--in any case it has no option to open within Firefox and seems to be an operation system or Zotero dialogue rather than a Firefox/PDF Download prompt).

    I hope this is a clear description of the problem. Thanks for any advice.
  • dstillman
    In order to avoid throwing up the standard Firefox download option window whenever you view a snapshot Firefox can't handle, Zotero tries to figure out whether the file can be handled natively or with a plugin and then either passes it to Firefox or launches it via the OS (except on OSes like Linux that don't support launching).

    For some reason Zotero is under the impression that you don't have a plugin to handle PDFs. I first thought that the issue here was that the PDF Download extension isn't registered as an actual "plugin," so when Zotero checks the MIME types that have handlers, it doesn't find anything for PDFs. But it looks like PDF Download still requires Acrobat or FoxIT to be installed, so, since it sounds like you have the Acrobat plugin, I'm not sure why this is happening.

    CG, can you load up about:plugins, Select All, save the contents to a text file, and, if you have a Trac account, attach it to the ticket below (or, if not, just send a copy to support@zo...org, and I'll attach it). Thanks.

    https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/535
  • twaring
    Hi Dan,

    I've just upgraded to 1.0.0b4.r5, and I've also installed the Mac Firefox plugin called PDF download, which allows non-Acrobat viewing of pdfs in the browser, mainly. I don't know if doing either one or the other or the combination has caused it, but as a result my "view file" link to PDFs now doesn't actually result in the viewing of the pdf but it rather copies a new copy from zotero's hold to the desktop, where I have to open it manually. I tried disabling PDF-Download, and that didn't work. Any ideas?

    Also, I would love for the ability to right click on a .pdf link and to have an option available, if Zotero confirms that it's a pdf on the other end, to save it straight to the Zotero DB. The "save as snapshot" command doesn't do this exactly, right? If it does then the icon that comes after manually attaching a pdf (blank doc-a pdf picture would be nice, such as http://arbeit.ucdavis.edu/mcelreath/files/file_PDF.gif) is different than the one that comes with a "snapshot". And that difference is confusing, since snapshots are taken of webpages, and pdfs are either downloaded or not.

    Thanks!

    Tim
  • Green Leader
    Hello,

    I'm currently experiencing the same issue as CuriousGeorge. -- I've checked about:pugins in Firefox and the MIME type for application/pdf is enabled. I'm running Firefox 2.0.3 with the latest Zotero on WinXP.

    What's strange is that this issue seems to be Zotero specific.

    Other PDFs are loaded within Firefox as expected. And it is intermittent. -- Zotero PDFs loaded into the browser window without a hitch until Firefox crashed a few days ago....

    Anyone have any ideas?

    Thanks,
    GL
  • giclin
    maybe you might want to check the preferences in Adobe Acrobat (if you're using this) too. I have one internet category that has an "open pdf in web browser" option.
  • jamesm
    CuriousGeorge, Green leader,

    I had the same problem. The problem was that Firefox had two entries for handling PDF files. Check your "File types" preferences:

    Tools->Options->"File Types" click "Manage..."

    This displays a list of all file types that Firefox knows how to handle. Look for "Adobe Acrobat Document". You should one entry under this name. Click "Change action" to view the settings. It should be configured to use the Acrobat plugin.

    if you have two entries, the problem I had, one will probably be a "Save As..." action. Remove this action, I think it gets created when Firefox asks you "if you always want to do this for files of this type" I must have clicked yes at some point.

    If you don't have an "Adobe Acrobat Document" entry, then Firefox doesn't know about the acrobat plugin. If you have Acrobat installed, then I'm not sure what the best fix is, Firefox does not seem to let you make a new action from scratch. Maybe remove and re-install Acrobat, but this might cause other problems.
Sign In or Register to comment.