Word PDF Hyperlinks and Safari
I have a word document that contains a series of HTML and PDF links.
All html links in the document open fine on the Mac, whilst PDF links, open in Safari as garbage/ASCII code. If I cut/paste the link into Safari directly, the PDFs open fine, or if you cut/paste the link into Safari's download manager, it downloads the PDF and they open fine in preview. This issue is also explained in this archived post http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2275472
Following is the testing I've done to date.
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 5.0.3 with Word 2011 the PDFs opens as garbage in Safari.
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 5.0.3 with Word 2008 the PDFs opens as garbage in Safari.
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 4.0.3 with Word 2011 we get an error "Unable to open http://.pdf Cannot download the information you requested"
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 4.0.3 with Word 2008 the PDFs opens as garbage in Safari.
• If Firefox is configured to be the default browser, we are prompted to download the PDF file and it opens fine in Mac OS X Preview.
• In Parallels/Windows 7, when we open the document in Word 2007 for Windows and click on a PDF link, it opens in Safari (for Mac) fine.
• In Safari, I have disabled the AdobePDFViewer.plugin by placing it in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Disabled Plug-Ins, that made no difference. So I think the whole Adobe Reader aspect has nothing to do with the situation.
• It works fine in 10.5.8 with Safari 3.2.3 and Word 2008.
• Happens in a .docx and a .doc document
• If I open this link directly (PDF Link from Apple) in Safari - http://download.info.apple.com/AppleSupport_Area/Manuals/macos/0342049.PDF It opens fine as a PDF within Safari. Click on it as a link pasted in Word, I get the same issue.
• In Open Office with the same document all the links including PDF links work in Safari, except OpenOffice has lost a lot of the formatting of the document.
• In NeoOffice with the same document all the links including PDF links work in Safari, except NeoOffice has lost a lot of the formatting as well.
• Using iWork /Pages with the same document, all the links work fine.
My conclusion is that Word for Mac is the culprit. A colleague advised me that in his opinion, when you click on a PDF link in a Word document, and you see the message “Word is preparing to load this document”, it is not sending the correct “content type” to Safari and therefore Safari does not know what to do with the document.
I am playing around with a preference pane called “Default Apps” from
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/Bundles.html#RCDefaultApp
To see if it can help the situation. Yet it’s a little difficult when external clients need to read this document, and I do not feel comfortable installing or recommending to install third party plugins/solutions so they can read our document, it should just work.
I have also submitted this to Microsoft.
I have thought of a workaround though and it has been tested and works, embed the PDFs into some HTML code, and use the HTML code as a web link in the Document as opposed to a direct link to a PDF. The code would look something like this.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<BODY>
<embed type="application/pdf" src="http://www.example.com/example.pdf#scrollbar=0" width="100%" height="100%"/>
</BODY>
</HEAD>
</HTML>
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Regards Chris.
All html links in the document open fine on the Mac, whilst PDF links, open in Safari as garbage/ASCII code. If I cut/paste the link into Safari directly, the PDFs open fine, or if you cut/paste the link into Safari's download manager, it downloads the PDF and they open fine in preview. This issue is also explained in this archived post http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2275472
Following is the testing I've done to date.
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 5.0.3 with Word 2011 the PDFs opens as garbage in Safari.
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 5.0.3 with Word 2008 the PDFs opens as garbage in Safari.
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 4.0.3 with Word 2011 we get an error "Unable to open http://.pdf Cannot download the information you requested"
• On a Mac OS X 10.6.6, Adobe Reader 10.0.0, Safari 4.0.3 with Word 2008 the PDFs opens as garbage in Safari.
• If Firefox is configured to be the default browser, we are prompted to download the PDF file and it opens fine in Mac OS X Preview.
• In Parallels/Windows 7, when we open the document in Word 2007 for Windows and click on a PDF link, it opens in Safari (for Mac) fine.
• In Safari, I have disabled the AdobePDFViewer.plugin by placing it in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Disabled Plug-Ins, that made no difference. So I think the whole Adobe Reader aspect has nothing to do with the situation.
• It works fine in 10.5.8 with Safari 3.2.3 and Word 2008.
• Happens in a .docx and a .doc document
• If I open this link directly (PDF Link from Apple) in Safari - http://download.info.apple.com/AppleSupport_Area/Manuals/macos/0342049.PDF It opens fine as a PDF within Safari. Click on it as a link pasted in Word, I get the same issue.
• In Open Office with the same document all the links including PDF links work in Safari, except OpenOffice has lost a lot of the formatting of the document.
• In NeoOffice with the same document all the links including PDF links work in Safari, except NeoOffice has lost a lot of the formatting as well.
• Using iWork /Pages with the same document, all the links work fine.
My conclusion is that Word for Mac is the culprit. A colleague advised me that in his opinion, when you click on a PDF link in a Word document, and you see the message “Word is preparing to load this document”, it is not sending the correct “content type” to Safari and therefore Safari does not know what to do with the document.
I am playing around with a preference pane called “Default Apps” from
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/Bundles.html#RCDefaultApp
To see if it can help the situation. Yet it’s a little difficult when external clients need to read this document, and I do not feel comfortable installing or recommending to install third party plugins/solutions so they can read our document, it should just work.
I have also submitted this to Microsoft.
I have thought of a workaround though and it has been tested and works, embed the PDFs into some HTML code, and use the HTML code as a web link in the Document as opposed to a direct link to a PDF. The code would look something like this.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<BODY>
<embed type="application/pdf" src="http://www.example.com/example.pdf#scrollbar=0" width="100%" height="100%"/>
</BODY>
</HEAD>
</HTML>
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Regards Chris.
MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)
