6 ms·

The state of PDF support in Firefox on OS X has me stuck at FF 3.6, and it doesn't look like that'll be changing for a while (unless I want to experiment with r

The state of PDF support in Firefox on OS X has me stuck at FF 3.6, and it doesn't look like that'll be changing for a while (unless I want to experiment with random xpi's and running FF 4+ in 32-bit mode, etc). Until that's resolved, all the fancy CSS tweaks in the world won't mean a hoot.

randallsquared 15y ago
On OS X, there's possibly the best PDF viewer ever, in Preview. I'm curious why you'd want so strongly to avoid using it?
- m_eiman 15y ago
  I prefer opening a PDF in a tab until I've had a chance to see if it's something I want to keep. With download-and-open-in-Preview I'm filling up my Downloaded Files folder with a lot of PDFs that I don't want to keep, and I'll have to delete them manually.
  - cemerick 15y ago
    Indeed, I'm surprised this had to be said.
    - timtadh 15y ago
      As a linux user I am surprised. When I download to open in my reader the pdfs go into /tmp. This is fine, because since /tmp is a ramfs it just goes away when I turn off my computer. If I want it I just save it to a permanent location.
      - randallsquared 15y ago
        Unlike m_eiman and cemerick, I regard dumping debris into my Downloads folder as a feature. I basically never clean it out; it's just a convenience place to keep stuff that I have a low probability of ever wanting again, auto-sorted by how likely I am to want it (most recent first, in other words). Since I almost never bother with more than the first few items in the stack display of Downloads, it didn't occur to me that cleaning it out might be a chore, or even desirable.
        m_eiman 15y ago
        It's desirable when you're using a laptop with a 120GB SSD that for some reason fills up all the time :/
    - edu 15y ago
      This is the way (download, open in preview, keep/delete) I prefer. It's just a matter of taste.
- jaysonelliot 15y ago
  Whatever engine Apple is using to view PDFs in Preview, it doesn't always display PDFs correctly. It's much faster than the bloated beast that is Acrobat, but I'd say about 20% of the documents I open in Preview have to be viewed in Acrobat to be usable, so I've just defaulted to avoiding Preview instead. A good, fast PDF viewer in the browser would be far better than either of those options.
  - gmac 15y ago
    What kinds of PDFs are you opening? I find the failure rate in Preview is more like 0.5%, and it's generally related to annoying (Adobe proprietary?) form-related stuff. Plus Preview can also do some very handy basic editing (cropping, adding/deleting/reordering pages, etc.), which I can only assume Adobe have left out to in order to up-sell you Acrobat.
ggchappell 15y ago
Could you explain the problem you're referring to (or point me to a page that does)? I'm currently running FF 3.6 on OS X. Getting regular announcements of 4.0, and thinking I'll install it sometime soon. I don't usually pay much attention to what features/problems the new version might have. So, what's up with this?
- dooq 15y ago
  I tried upgrading to FF4 on OSX, and it was a disaster: crashing on me left, right, and center. I went back to FF3.6 in under a week of use. I suggest OSX users wait for some stability updates before upgrading.
  - abraham 15y ago
    Fx4 is nothing but stable for me. Do you perhaps have a number of extensions that could be causing the instability issues?
code_duck 15y ago
If PDFs are that important to you, why not just use the external PDF viewer of your choice?
naner 15y ago
FF or Chromium (or both) should embed MuPDF[1]. It is extremely fast, reasonably small, and renders very well. 1: http://mupdf.com/ http://mupdf.com/
- abraham 15y ago
  It looks like Chromium doesn't have it but Google Chrome has a built in PDF viewer.
  - naner 15y ago
    Right. Chrome uses a binary PDF reader plugin, there are no sources available. Open source projects like Chromium and Firefox require an open source reader. I think MuPDF would be a good choice.
    - abraham 15y ago
      Does MuPDF have any speed/performance/etc benefits over the plugin in Chrome? Are there any reasons to spend the time/effort to switched other then one is open source?
      - naner 15y ago
        I wasn't talking about Chrome switching. MuPDF is an open source option for open source projects.
- ephemient 15y ago
  Chrome bundles a PDF renderer. (You won't find it in the open Chromium sources; it's by proprietary license from a third party.) http://blog.chromium.org/2010/06/bringing-improved-pdf-support-to-google.html http://blog.chromium.org/2010/06/bringing-improved-pdf-suppo... It's already sandboxed and pretty fast and light-weight, so I'm not sure the Chromium developers would put much work into a replacement.

randallsquared 15y ago

On OS X, there's possibly the best PDF viewer ever, in Preview. I'm curious why you'd want so strongly to avoid using it?

m_eiman 15y ago
I prefer opening a PDF in a tab until I've had a chance to see if it's something I want to keep. With download-and-open-in-Preview I'm filling up my Downloaded Files folder with a lot of PDFs that I don't want to keep, and I'll have to delete them manually.
- cemerick 15y ago
  Indeed, I'm surprised this had to be said.
  - timtadh 15y ago
    As a linux user I am surprised. When I download to open in my reader the pdfs go into /tmp. This is fine, because since /tmp is a ramfs it just goes away when I turn off my computer. If I want it I just save it to a permanent location.
    - randallsquared 15y ago
      Unlike m_eiman and cemerick, I regard dumping debris into my Downloads folder as a feature. I basically never clean it out; it's just a convenience place to keep stuff that I have a low probability of ever wanting again, auto-sorted by how likely I am to want it (most recent first, in other words). Since I almost never bother with more than the first few items in the stack display of Downloads, it didn't occur to me that cleaning it out might be a chore, or even desirable.
      - m_eiman 15y ago
        It's desirable when you're using a laptop with a 120GB SSD that for some reason fills up all the time :/
  - edu 15y ago
    This is the way (download, open in preview, keep/delete) I prefer. It's just a matter of taste.
jaysonelliot 15y ago
Whatever engine Apple is using to view PDFs in Preview, it doesn't always display PDFs correctly. It's much faster than the bloated beast that is Acrobat, but I'd say about 20% of the documents I open in Preview have to be viewed in Acrobat to be usable, so I've just defaulted to avoiding Preview instead. A good, fast PDF viewer in the browser would be far better than either of those options.
- gmac 15y ago
  What kinds of PDFs are you opening? I find the failure rate in Preview is more like 0.5%, and it's generally related to annoying (Adobe proprietary?) form-related stuff. Plus Preview can also do some very handy basic editing (cropping, adding/deleting/reordering pages, etc.), which I can only assume Adobe have left out to in order to up-sell you Acrobat.

ggchappell 15y ago

Could you explain the problem you're referring to (or point me to a page that does)? I'm currently running FF 3.6 on OS X. Getting regular announcements of 4.0, and thinking I'll install it sometime soon. I don't usually pay much attention to what features/problems the new version might have. So, what's up with this?

dooq 15y ago
I tried upgrading to FF4 on OSX, and it was a disaster: crashing on me left, right, and center. I went back to FF3.6 in under a week of use. I suggest OSX users wait for some stability updates before upgrading.
- abraham 15y ago
  Fx4 is nothing but stable for me. Do you perhaps have a number of extensions that could be causing the instability issues?

code_duck 15y ago

If PDFs are that important to you, why not just use the external PDF viewer of your choice?

naner 15y ago

FF or Chromium (or both) should embed MuPDF[1]. It is extremely fast, reasonably small, and renders very well. 1: http://mupdf.com/ http://mupdf.com/

abraham 15y ago
It looks like Chromium doesn't have it but Google Chrome has a built in PDF viewer.
- naner 15y ago
  Right. Chrome uses a binary PDF reader plugin, there are no sources available. Open source projects like Chromium and Firefox require an open source reader. I think MuPDF would be a good choice.
  - abraham 15y ago
    Does MuPDF have any speed/performance/etc benefits over the plugin in Chrome? Are there any reasons to spend the time/effort to switched other then one is open source?
    - naner 15y ago
      I wasn't talking about Chrome switching. MuPDF is an open source option for open source projects.
ephemient 15y ago
Chrome bundles a PDF renderer. (You won't find it in the open Chromium sources; it's by proprietary license from a third party.) http://blog.chromium.org/2010/06/bringing-improved-pdf-support-to-google.html http://blog.chromium.org/2010/06/bringing-improved-pdf-suppo... It's already sandboxed and pretty fast and light-weight, so I'm not sure the Chromium developers would put much work into a replacement.