PDF Form Fixes and Facts

Q. Why don't the PDF files load as easily as they used to?
A. As things get more advanced they also become more complex. With every upgrade, something else slips a little farther behind. The following information may provide some help if you are having problems.

With Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) files, compatibility shouldn’t be an issue. This file format has been used with a variety of computer platforms and Web browsers for over 15 years. If you have downloaded and installed the free Acrobat or Adobe Reader from the Adobe Web site (www.adobe.com/downloads), you should be able to view and print PDF files. Older versions of Reader are called Acrobat Reader, and newer versions are called Adobe Reader. However, sometimes problems do arise when working with PDF files. VIEWING Online Conflicts Sometimes you may encounter a problem when you try to open a PDF file online through your Web browser. For instance, when you click a link to a PDF file, the document doesn’t open and all you see is a red “X” in the browser window or a placeholder icon. There are a several ways to troubleshoot this problem. The first is a quick workaround: Save the PDF file to your hard drive (right-click the file link, choose Save Target As (Internet Explorer) or Save Link As (Firefox), select a location in the Save As dialog box, and click Save) and then try opening it through Windows Explorer (NOT the same as Internet Explorer). More Technical Options – if you don't need these, skip down to Update Acrobat Reader. Another option is to check Reader’s settings to make sure it can display a PDF file in your browser. If this setting is enabled, the PDF will open in your browser window and you won’t even see Reader. To enable this setting in Reader, open the Edit menu and choose Preferences. Next, select either Options or Internet (the two options will be different depending on your version of Reader). Make sure the Display PDF In Browser option is selected. Close Reader and try to open the PDF file again. At the same time, trying to display a PDF file through your browser could be the problem. To determine if this is the case, open Reader, uncheck the Display PDF In Browser option mentioned above, close Reader, and try to view the PDF file this way. This is a good option if, for instance, the PDF file you’re trying to view was created with a security feature that an older version of Reader can’t handle. Viewing the PDF file through Reader instead of your browser may solve the problem Even more technical issues If you are using Internet Explorer, problems could be rooted in your IE security settings. If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can open Internet Explorer and select Manage Add-ons from the Tools menu. From the Show drop-down menu, choose Add-ons That Have Been Used By Internet Explorer. You should see Adobe Acrobat Control (listed as pdf.ocx in the File column). Make sure this add-on is Enabled in the Status column. If it’s Disabled, highlight the Adobe Acrobat Control entry, select the Enable radio button, and click OK. Update Acrobat Reader Sometimes PDF files simply won’t display in older versions of Reader. The Adobe Web site has a link for the newest version. If you're running an earlier version of Windows, you can choose the appropriate version of Reader—for example, version 6.0.1 for Windows 2000. PRINTING Printing Problems One solution to a printing problem is to print the PDF file as an image. If you’re using Reader 6.0 or above, choose File, Print, and click the Advanced button. Check the Print As Image box and click OK twice. If you’re using Reader 5.x, select File, Print, Print As Image, and click OK. This workaround won’t pinpoint the source of the problem, but it solves many of the problems between PDF files and printers. An outdated printer driver (the program which runs your printer) could be the source of the printing conflict. Go to the Web site of your printer’s manufacturer to see if you need to download and install a newer driver for your printer. Other Issues Another common PDF problem is associated with trying to view a PDF on a Macintosh system. Mac OS users may have trouble displaying a PDF file, and they may think the reason is that the PDF document was created on a PC system. But remember, PDF is a platform-independent format, so that shouldn’t be the issue. Instead, the problem may be with Viewer, the built-in PDF viewer in Mac. Use the Settings menu in Viewer to make Adobe Reader the default viewer for PDF documents. If none of these solutions solves your problem, then it’s possible that something is wrong with Reader itself. Newer versions of Reader contain a Detect And Repair command in the Help menu. Run this command to see if part of Reader, such as its ActiveX plug-ins, is missing or corrupted. If this tool does make a change to Reader, restart your system before proceeding with anything else.