PDFs now viewed with AdobePDFViewer

[mchapman]

I upgraded to 10.2.1 this morning.

Now when I want to view a PDF in list view it tells me that AdobePDFViewer cannot find a compatible viewer to view the PDF. If I choose Acrobat reader I get all the unwanted stuff that Adobe puts around the PDF. If I choose cancel I get the rotating thinking circle in the viewing window but it never finds anything.

How do I go back to viewing the plain PDF?

Thanks,

Mark
PowerBook G4, 10. 4.11

[Jon]

Hi,

The Adobe and Schubert plug-ins cause problems. You can disable them and let Bookends use the OS X frameworks. Or you can turn using WebKit to display pdfs in Bookends (use the Action popup menu and uncheck "Use WebKit to display pdfs") -- that reverts to the old behavior.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mchapman]

Wonderful!

Thank you.

Is there a way to just disable the Adobe plugins for Bookends?

[Jon]

Unfortunately I don't know of any way to do that. Bookends uses WebKit, and the plug-ins are used by any app that uses that framework -- it's not application-specific AFAIK.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mchapman]

Too bad.

Nonetheless, I'm happy because I have the old behaviour back even if I am missing something.

[Jon]

All you are missing in the list view is the ability to copy text from the pdf, and any links in it won't be live (personally I turn it off there).

The other thing you'll miss if you use the Adobe pdf plug-in is in Online Search -- downloading of pdfs when reference surfing won't work (you can still use the built-in browser, but the pdf won't download).

Jon
Sonny Software

[dspedersen]

Hi,

The Adobe and Schubert plug-ins cause problems. You can disable them and let Bookends use the OS X frameworks. Or you can turn using WebKit to display pdfs in Bookends (use the Action popup menu and uncheck "Use WebKit to display pdfs") -- that reverts to the old behavior.

Jon
Sonny Software

Great! Just what I needed, as I can now again just double click on the shown pdf to have it opened in my default pdf-viewer, which I find much more convinient (use Skim as my default pdf-viewer, which let me add notes, highlight text, underline it, etc.). I found it tedious to have this little popup bezel appearing before being able to open op a pdf.

[MBNelson]

Just thought that I'd add that I had the same issue. I just upgraded from 10.1 to 10.3.1 and was surprised that I couldn't see any of my pdfs (all I got was the Adobe symbol). I turned off the webkit using Jon's instructions and that solved the problem.

But I'm a little bummed it will impact my ability to use some of the other Bookends functionality.

[Jon]

Hi,

First, upgrading Adobe to the latest version will let you see the pdfs.

Second, the problem is with the Adobe plugin interfering with Bookends, not the other way around. If you turn off the Adobe plugin everything in Bookends will work fine (if you don't, everything will work except drag and drop downloading of pdfs with the reference surfing proxy icon).

Jon
Sonny Software

[MBNelson]

Thanks. I really appreciate the fast support given here!

I'll look into upgrading Adobe, though I'm not sure how easy that will be without paying for a new version of Adobe Acrobat Professional (provided by my workplace). Also, since I use Skim like the previous user, it may not be the perfect solution. But I'll definitely play around with some of these options.

[Jon]

Hi,

Just upgrade Adobe Acrobat Reader (free). That installs the newer pdf reader plugin that isn't so buggy.

Jon
Sonny Software