Safari and PDFs problem

Question

Safari and PDFs problem

Hi,

Running Safari 5.1.3 on OS X 10.7.3. I have found at least two websites where I can view a PDF but unable to zoom in or out or save it as a PDF to disk. I tried the same websites with Chrome and there are some differences. Chrome displays a box where you can zoom in or out and there is an icon to save the file to disc and it works perfectly on the websites that do not work on Safari. At one time I am sure I had the ability to save any PDF I was viewing in Safari to disc, now I must use Chrome for two websites currently. I use Preview to view all PDF files and do NOT have Acrobat Reader installed or the PDF viewer plugin installed in the main library.

When I am viewing a PDF file in Safari at the troublesome websites I can only "save as" a web archive or html document, not a PDF.

One such website URL is http://kaneoheyachtclub.com/tellarchive/default.aspx I can only download a PDF of one of these files using Chrome, but not Safari.

Any suggestions or answers regarding this problem would be most appreciated...

Posted on Feb 8, 2012 5:14 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,781 points

Feb 8, 2012 7:17 PM in response to William Ellwin

Right-click or control-click anywhere in the PDF element and select Save PDF As... from the contextual menu.

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Answer 2

Feb 8, 2012 7:50 PM in response to Linc Davis

You are correct, this does work, however the ability to change magnification inside of Safari is still not functional. Someone else wrote that a toolbar that used to be available is no longer available in the current version of Safari.

The primary thing I was looking for was to download the pdf and view it in Preview. It would also be nice to have the function of changing magnification of the PDF inside of Safari.

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,781 points

Feb 8, 2012 8:03 PM in response to William Ellwin

Those PDF's are embedded in iframes, so the usual PDF controls aren't available. I don't use Chrome, so I don't know how it handles this kind of page element. In Safari, instead of Save PDF As, you can select Open PDF in New Window (or Tab.)

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Answer 4

Feb 8, 2012 8:33 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks Linc,

Chrome does indeed have a tiny toolbox with printing, saving, zooming, centering...

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Answer 5

Feb 9, 2012 11:19 AM in response to Linc Davis

Again, thanks Linc,

ONE FINAL NOTATION TO THIS THREAD.

When you select to open the pdf in a new window OR a new tab in Safari, you DO see a small toolbar when the mouse is moved to the bottom center of the displayed PDF. This permits zooming in or out, opening the PDF in Preview or Saving to Disc. So this displays the usual PDF controls you mention above...

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Answer 6

mswcpt

Level 1

14 points

Apr 28, 2012 2:06 AM in response to William Ellwin

Hi there -

I am a fairly recent change-over customer (Win to Mac) and have a similar problem with PDF's in Safari.

The above replies by Linc is the solution to only some PDF's it seems. I just came across two PDF's online that I manage to save in Chrome no problem (using the save icon) to HD but cannot no matter what I try save the exact same PDF when open in Safari. I have tried right click, cntrl click, save as from file menu - it won't allow it to be saved - says " The document *** could not be exported as ***.pdf". For me this is a very weak feature of Safari compared to Chrome.

I use ALOT of online PDF's - particularly academic documents as I am researching for my PHD, and I find this problem in Safari very annoying because it means either I must have two browsers open on the MAC or a windows machine running next to me with Chrome and open the URL's on both platforms so I can save the materials...

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