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Bryan ButlerFlag for United States of America

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PDF links not opening in IE7, but OK in Firefox

"file:///c:/test/help/content/PDF/dh-30.pdf" doesn't open in IE7 on vista or XP.  It will "save as" just fine, but it will not open.  It does work fine in Firefox.  "Open in new window" doesn't work either.  In IE it does nothing when I click on it...no errors or anything.  The html file has <a href="../PDF/dh-30.pdf">.  I know Firefox is better and everyone should use it rather than IE, but...
Avatar of Michel Plungjan
Michel Plungjan
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Actually normally FF would NOT open such a link and IE would so not so sure about which one is better... It is a security issue in my opinion.
In IE7 click Tools | Manage Add-ons

You should see Adobe PDF Reader Link Helper listed as an enabled, currently loaded, browser help object.

Is this the case?

Avatar of Bryan Butler

ASKER

It is enable.
It could be ur IE add-on problem

to check this

first open adobe reader in your computer and minimize it, now open your link in IE
in your case file:///c:/test/help/content/PDF/dh-30.pdf.
if it will be directly opened by adobe reader  opened previously, then it could be IE add-on problem.

I should have added that I've tried a ton of stuff including uninstalling Reader, enabling/disabling the Reader plug-in, checking registry, etc.  Also, I can just type in the URL and the PDF opens fine inside of IE....WIERD!    I've tried a bunch of security setting and nothing worked there.   Thanks for the help folks.  This is driving me nuts.  
Also, non-local PDFs open fine.  So I'm thinking it's some security setting, but I've tried just about all of them.
Out of interest:

Have you tried configuring Adobe Reader to not open PDF's in the browser?

Click Edit | Preferences
Click 'Internet'
Deselect 'Display PDF in browser'
I tried turning it off and it seemed to work ;)  IE it didn't work to begin with.  But I did turn it back on and restart IE and crossed my fingers.  No luck.

I did find a related EE response that had this code below and when I took out all the HTML except the "click here PDF" link, then added the 2 lines below, it started working:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/22852450/Adober-Reader-7-8-refusing-to-open-PDF-via-javascript-redirect-links.html

Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=document.pdf");
Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", buffer.Length.ToString());

This is MadCap generated HTML and there are issues with PDFs, but I can find any that seem to be exactly like this.  Help?
I know this is server code, but it's the only thing I've found that gets it working.
I've tried to change the security setting in IE to "Allow active content to run in file on MyComputer" and that didn't work.  What wierd is if I put the URL in the address bar it opens the PDF in the browser just fine.  It seems like it must be some javascript setting...anyone?  I'm using Adobe Reader 9.  Also, I'm trying all these things on my XP and Vista boxes and they both do the same thing.
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Bryan Butler
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