joeschuh
asked on
How to force FireFox to choose right application for Word/Excel
I administer our company's intranet and we force our users to use FireFox for their browser.
I've had many complaints about the way FireFox handles different file types we link to on the site. Most of the complaints are relating to Word/Excel documents. For example, say they click on a Word document. FireFox will ask you what to open the document with. You hit the dropdown and select "other". Choose winword.exe and check the checkbox for "do this automatically". Then you do the same process for an Excel document on the site. So now you've told FireFox to open both word and excel documents with their respective programs. Well then if you go back in and try to open a Word document, FireFox will suggest Excel to open it and Word won't be in the dropdown. You have to go back to the "other" option again and re-locate Word...basically repeat the process each time. The only thing it does automatically is remember the last file extension association you used.
How can I make it so if a user downloads a Word or Excel document, FireFox opens it up in the correct program automatically? Or at least have the correct program in the dropdown list and not have to re-locate it each time you go from one file type to another?
I've had many complaints about the way FireFox handles different file types we link to on the site. Most of the complaints are relating to Word/Excel documents. For example, say they click on a Word document. FireFox will ask you what to open the document with. You hit the dropdown and select "other". Choose winword.exe and check the checkbox for "do this automatically". Then you do the same process for an Excel document on the site. So now you've told FireFox to open both word and excel documents with their respective programs. Well then if you go back in and try to open a Word document, FireFox will suggest Excel to open it and Word won't be in the dropdown. You have to go back to the "other" option again and re-locate Word...basically repeat the process each time. The only thing it does automatically is remember the last file extension association you used.
How can I make it so if a user downloads a Word or Excel document, FireFox opens it up in the correct program automatically? Or at least have the correct program in the dropdown list and not have to re-locate it each time you go from one file type to another?
in firefox go to tools>options>applications
ASKER
Thank you both for your responses.
I'm using v3.6.3.
Yeah, I'm familiar with the applications tab. That was the first thing I tried. I have application/vnd.ms-excel set to use Excel, text/html to Word (although they both have the same description text in the dialog...which is weird to me). No change in result though. Still if you open a Word doc after opening an Excel doc, assuming you selected Excel to open the Excel doc, FireFox will try to default to Excel to open the Word document and vice versa. It's like it remembers the association you used last, but nothing afterwards. So constantly switching back and forth between file types results in always having to manually select the .exe's to use to open the documents.
I'm using v3.6.3.
Yeah, I'm familiar with the applications tab. That was the first thing I tried. I have application/vnd.ms-excel set to use Excel, text/html to Word (although they both have the same description text in the dialog...which is weird to me). No change in result though. Still if you open a Word doc after opening an Excel doc, assuming you selected Excel to open the Excel doc, FireFox will try to default to Excel to open the Word document and vice versa. It's like it remembers the association you used last, but nothing afterwards. So constantly switching back and forth between file types results in always having to manually select the .exe's to use to open the documents.
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joeschuh, I think mziter was asking about the Windows File Association and wanted you to confirm they were set properly to the respective Word and Excel programs. That should be your First step. Let's confirm those are set properly. What version of Windows? Either way, typical route to check, open Windows Explorer, hit the Tools->Folder Options->File Types and find .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx and make sure they are set to Word and Excel.
If on Win7, a little different route.
And then, we might have to look at the MimeTypes that they are coming across as,
I'm on a MAC at the moment so I don't have Office installed. I'll check on my other machine a little later to see what we can figure out.
If on Win7, a little different route.
And then, we might have to look at the MimeTypes that they are coming across as,
I'm on a MAC at the moment so I don't have Office installed. I'll check on my other machine a little later to see what we can figure out.
Also, this page has LOTS of info we may have to look through.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Unable_to_set_an_automatic_action
http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Unable_to_set_an_automatic_action
Joe,
Have you actually sat down at one of their machines as them, and confirmed that it works as you are describing? Very good possibility of them not seeing the Always Do this for this type checkbox.
One other thought just occurred to me. Do these users have read/write permissions to their Firefox Profile folder? Are you wiping any of their preferences?
I just ran a test in Firefox 3.6.3 and Office 2007, after confirming my own defaults, then running samples, it 's working and staying as requested. But my Firefox profile is local to my machine, not on work's network.
Testing001.jpg
Have you actually sat down at one of their machines as them, and confirmed that it works as you are describing? Very good possibility of them not seeing the Always Do this for this type checkbox.
One other thought just occurred to me. Do these users have read/write permissions to their Firefox Profile folder? Are you wiping any of their preferences?
I just ran a test in Firefox 3.6.3 and Office 2007, after confirming my own defaults, then running samples, it 's working and staying as requested. But my Firefox profile is local to my machine, not on work's network.
Testing001.jpg
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What version of firefox is everyone using?