This only applies to Tiger, right?

10.3.9 secretly introduced an updated WebKit/Core/Safari so I believe this applies to 10.3.9 as well as Tiger.

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i am jack's amusing sig file

Tryed this using 10.3.9 and it dosen't seem to work. Will test it out with Tiger once it arrives.

no, it doesn't here

perhaps slightly off topic, but how would one go about disabling the acrobat pdf support so as to even *see* the effects of apple's native support. I'd like to try this before deciding what else I want to do.

Or am I just being dense and not realizing that the command you posted here will do that?

You need to find Adobe's PDF plugin and move it. It is probably lurking in /Library/Internet Plugins (though it may be in your personal Library, depending on how you installed reader). Just pull that out to your Desktop or something and restart Safari. However, as others have mentioned above - it doesn't seem to work in Panther...

Nah, just go into Adobe Reader Prefs and disable it.

Unless of course those Adobe Reader Internet preferences are grayed out as on my system, perhaps because I'm not logged in as adminstrator which Adobe Reader 7.0 needs in order to install it's plugin into the Safari Bundle -- why mess around with plugins in the user's Application Support folder when you can just modify the Application itself.

You don't really browse the web using an administrator account do you?

You need admin privileges to disable the Adobe Reader 7.0 Plugin, first you need to log in as Adminstrator and launch Adobe Reader 7.0 and choose preferences (cmd-K - nonstandard), down in Internet unclick the first two items.

Problem is when you log into a non-admin account Reader 7.0 will ask for admin username/password so it can install Frameworks in Safari. If you can't or won't Adobe Reader quits.

So you need to set the preferences in an admin account before you use Reader 7.0 in a non-admin account; otherwise, remove \~/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.* in the non-admin account.

If you can't get the Internet preferences disabled in Reader 7.0 in the non-admin accounts either copy an admin preference file "com.adobe.Reader7.0.plist" or try editting that file using the Property List Editor (if you installed the Developer Tools).

Under the section Originals, look for BrowserCheck and BrowserIntegration. If BrowserCheck doesn't exist select Originals and clcik button New Child, change the "New Item" to "BrowserCheck", change it to an array, then expand the disclosure triangle and press New Child, change it to "Number" with value of 0 and hit "New Sibling" button and change it to Boolean with value of No.

If you convert it to text you would get:

<key>Originals</key>
<dict>
<key>BrowserCheck</key>
<array>
<integer>0</integer>
<false/>
</array>

Next do the same for BrowserIntegration if it does not exist.

Preventing Adobe Reader 7.0 from messing with Safari is very hard, perhaps impossible. The closest I came was by "fixing" "com.adobe.acrobat.sh.plist", open with property editor and change "NoSelfHealNeeded" to "Yes". Problem is that Adobe Reader will undo this everytime it is launched unless you get fancy with the premissions of ~/Library/Preferences (simple changing of the premissions of this file is bypassed by Adobe Reader 7.0).

Reader also installs a plugin directory in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/.

The ends that Adobe will go to to modify your non-Adobe applications should give serious reason to avoid using Adobe Reader.

Just so as you know, Apple's handling of PDFs is displaying them as an image (or a scrolling image). There are no controls whatsoever. It is really quite lame. I went back to using SchubertITs excellent plug-in.

When using Apple's PDF handing, control-click to see the controls.

I too was initially disappointed with the move to in-line viewing of PDFs. But now that I've discovered the controls which Control-clicking brings up I'm beginning to prefer the new approach. The first option is to Open with Preview, so I can still do this if I wish, while the zoom and page controls are quite adequate for a cursory examination of documents.

I notice that PDFs which you elect to open with Preview are in the 'tmp' folder at the root level of one's HD. Are items cleared from here on quitting Safari? If so, this is preferable to cluttering up one's download folder with loads of redundant PDFs.

On balance I've now become converted to the new approach, and won't take advantage of this hint's helpful advice.

Are items cleared from here on quitting Safari?

The items in /tmp are removed semi-regularly. They are not necessarily removed when Safari quits unless Safari itself does so. Otherwise, the operating system will clean it periodically.

It looks like this cleaning task is handled by the "daily" script (/private/etc/daily) which is run on a daily basis. And the policy built into the script is that items which have neither been created or accessed within the last three days will be removed.

Oh, thanks for the clue. I've been wondering how to access PDF controls in Safari preview. The ctrl+click does the trick. Deserves its own hint really!

As of Nov 1 2005, OS X 10.4.2, this doesn't work for me. Safari opens the PDF in the browser even after issuing the above command.

It appears to me that the terminal command is only half of what is required. The other half is to go to acrobat preferences->internet and uncheck the "Display PDF in browser using ..." checkbox.

10.4.5 didn't change the value of this default, but along with 10.4.5 came an update to the QuickTime plug-in. The defaults database for the com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences shows that the WebPluginMIMETypes dictionary key has a "application/pdf" dictionary. In the "application/pdf" dictionary is a boolean key WebPluginTypeEnabled. This was set to YES. I didn't try to construct a defaults command to change the value of this key in a dictionary inside a dictionary inside the com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences domain (Whew!). As the man page says, "Defaults can be structured in very complex ways, making it difficult for the user to enter them with this command."

However, you can change the value of this default via the System Preferences pane for QuickTime by clicking the MIME Settings button on the pane and finding the PDF Image preference and turn it off.

I haven't seen any bad effects from this. But if other applications you use invoke the QuickTime plug-in and image pdf files for you, you may not get the results you want by disabling this preference.

But for me, this is good.

I was unable to read ANY pdf files in Safari, and unable to select any application that could read dpf files in the dialog box that asked me to select one. Running the Adobe's Version Cue uninstall app fixed that.

Plus, thanks to the tips in this thread, I'm back to viewing pdfs in Safari!

Andreas Fischlin

[ Reply to This | # ]

Works perfect in Mac OS 10.4.11 and Safari 3 for disabling the error message received at the bottom of the Safari window when the Adobe Acrobat 8 Reader prevents the built-in PDF support. Also, by eliminating this conflict, PDF documents open FAST compared to before. The only problem I've found is when I returned to Terminal to reverse the command to "NO" it did not restore the Safari built-in PDF support. So, I think it's a one-way trip for now. I much prefer the Adobe reader and probably won't switch back. Great tip!!!

The post office has a faq to address this problem:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yzxdwd8