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PDF's in Safari

Avatar Thomas Maude
I'm doing a lot of research about dementia at the moment that involves opening data in PDF's in safari. When I have a PDF in the browser and I go to save as and download them as a PDF to the desktop and the file shows there but when I come to open it as a stand alone PDF it gives an error message of the file not containing any info and it does indeed show zero kilobytes if I go to show info.

When I do the google searches and I can see the info I want is available as a PDF directly from there I try to download it from there rather than opening it inside the browser and this is sometimes successful but not always.

So my question is.

When I have a PDF within the Safari browser why is it downloading a zero kilobytes file ? is there a setting I need to change in the preferences maybe?

It gives the same error if I change the Adobe Reader to Preview and vice versa.

running 10.7.5 2GHz core 2 duo

many thanks
Tom

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Thomas. This is the second time in two days that this has cropped up and the “symptoms” appear to be the same. I wonder if there may be a conceptual issue.

First, over all the years Safari has been in use here (for quite a lot of research among other things) .pdfs have never caused me a problem. Some I save when they are displayed in Safari, and some I download from a Safari page as a normal file. No reports of a big “problem” have been publicised.

Yesterday a member tried to “save” an app’s help files in .pdf format with the same result as you have had with your .pdfs.

When the URL was emailed to me:
> http://plasq.com/manuals/comiclife/3.0/comiclife-3.0-gettingstarted.pdf <

it brought up the .pdf file to be displayed on my screen, and I saved it in the normal way to my desktop. Opening that file was successful.

This evening, on reading your post, I visited the Alzheimers Society:
> http://alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/download_info.php?fileID=2 <

and clicked on “Download this file” for the .pdf:
(Dementia UK 2007: Files associated with the Dementia UK report, a major study on the social and economic impact of dementia in the UK. Size: 4.31 MB).

This “downloaded” direct to my downloads folder, all 189 pages of it, and opens as normal. It was not necessary to save it.

So this may just be about the difference between saving a PDF “displayed as a page(s)” and downloading the actual PDF file.

Why not try the two urls above, bearing in mind the difference between:
printing a page to .pdf
saving a .pdf displayed as Safari page(s)
downloading a.pdf from a reference on a Safari page.
Fans of other browsers will find the same results.

Changing from Preview to Safari or vice-versa, or fiddling in Preferences won't make any difference.
Let us know how you get on.

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Thomas Maude
Thanks for putting in some time with this Euan ..the alzheimers site you posted is one of my main sources for reference so will attack it tomorrow as I will need to access that site many times. Interestingly I have had the same success as you until very recently in that Ive never had a problem with PDF's and saving them from anywhere Éuntil recently ! so will follow your destructions and feed back tomorow

many thanks

Tom

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Mick Burrell
Another thing to consider is that you may well be loading the web page (which has nothing on it) that just links to the pdf. Try right clicking (control-click) on the link and choose the option "download linked file to the desktop".

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Thomas Maude
Yes thanks Mick ..Thats what I have been doing in order to get them downloaded and most times that works although sometimes it will only show up as a HTML link rather than the PDF.

I tried Euan's comic link this morning which opened in Safari as a PDF but again wouldn't download as one.

When saving the PDF from Safari it gives it a .PDF end to the named file which makes it seem correct but the PDF file always ends up with zero bytes in it which links back to your suggestion that has the page loaded it or just linking to it Éinteresting.

When the browser loads the PDF it gives a loading blue bar showing the PDF being loaded É..which makes me think that the data is in there ÉÉ

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Euan Williams
Thomas, when you accessed the "Comic" help file, did you first try to "Download" it from the Safari page, and (only after that failed) try to "Save" it? What, in detail, did you actually do?

My continuing 'success', for want of a better term, with this “Comic” Help file is that I let the URL as quoted come up on screen in Safari (not just the first page, but subsequent ones as well — this file has 20 pages with a lot of images, so perhaps the file isn’t fully loaded when you try to save it.)

Our ‘phone exchange is only several hundred yards away so downloading is normally fast, but if you still live where you used to, that connection may be slow and the file not have loaded completely.

Note: this particular file already is a .pdf displayed within the URL page. The Safari alternative (File > Export to PDF) does the same thing as saving.

This works (believe me, I have tried it several times over three days) so I'm still wondering what you are actually doing in detail.

In my first response I suggested bearing in mind the differences between:

1. printing a page to .pdf

2. saving a .pdf displayed as Safari page(s)

3. downloading a.pdf from a reference on a Safari page.

— here separated with 1. 2. 3. options for a better reading experience !

I’m not an HTML guy, but the url’s “Comic” Help file IS the .pdf and can be read there from beginning to end and be saved to your drive — it isn’t a link to it, the url page contains it.

The Alzheimers file is a direct download button and similarly isn’t a link

When trouble strikes sometimes it’s better to go for a walk than to keep doing what “must work", but maybe isn’t the most appropriate thing to do — always helps for me!

Keep us in touch.

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Thomas Maude
Hi Euan here I am again keeping in touch ! with ÉI am pleased to say Ésuccess !

read through your destructions again Éwent for a walk É(downstairs for a cup of tea) É..and thinking of the link comic life I thought that maybe I needed some comic relief ..

When the PDF loads in the browser window at the bottom of the window when hovered over by the curser comes a floating menu ..grey and dark in colour and on the left hand side of the menu is an almost invisible icon to someone as partially sighted as me but I know what all the others did so I clicked on it and knew instantly that this was the answer it gave a download option as a PDF and once downloaded it was full of comedic life !! and I'm not joking either !!

So the floating menu when curserd over at the bottom of the window in the browser containing the loaded PDF will give the correct download needed.

Thank you Mick É.and thank you Euan ..we seem to make a pretty good team at detection one way and another I think it's the leaving things open ended that seems to help. All joking aside to use my last comedic pun ..I am very grateful for all the work and effort you have put in and I do appreciate it Euan.

Many Thanks
Tom

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Tom, happy the (very short) walk and cuppa' worked for you too.

I wonder which Safari version you are using. Here it's Safari 7.0.1 in OSX 9.0.1 (Mavericks), i.e. latest updates all round. And yes, the grey floating options choice show at the bottom of the screen here too although I have never used them.

Earlier Safari versions: I don't recall my simple "save" method not working (over many years). Could you let us know your Safari and System version?

Anyway, thanks for the thanks and I'm glad you're "good to go".

Re: PDF's in Safari

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Thomas, research we did this afternoon on the member’s Mac who first reported this issue led to an Adobe Acrobat plug in on his Mac not present on mine. Removing it (and all his Adobe Acrobat apps and ancillary files) restored the Save process for PDFs.

< AdobePDFViewerNPAPI < (Safari Internet plug-in).

Acrobat Reader works fine on my Mac and a fresh install (after removing all the original files) should be fine. Just check that the NPAPI plug-in is not installed in > /Library/Internet plug-ins < again.

The > AdobePDFViewer.plugin < is ok, but removal and fresh install of all files is recommended.

As the “Save” command is absent from the Safari File menu, saving is done by using the key shortcut
> cmnd+s < and dealing with the dialogue normally.

“Save As” when the “Comic Help” .pdf is showing produces an empty file as you have described — possibly the web page is “empty” of html code, and only showcases the .pdf file, but I'm not an html person.

Turning to the grey floating options panel that you see if you hover the mouse pointer over the .pdf:
on my Mac this has plus, minus, and two other options. If the offending > AdobePDFViewerNPAPI <
Internet plug-in is present, an extra option labelled with the Acrobat logo is offered.

Mac Acrobat Reader uninstall varies with versions, and various web pages describe what to do: Google > Acrobat Reader Mac Uninstall < for these, or visit Adobe’s web site.

Your fellow member was glad that someone else had noted the same problem. Hope this helps you too.
 
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