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Participant
February 9, 2017
Question

Can't open any PDFs (using ADOBE XI)

  • February 9, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 482 views

I am suddenly unable to open any PDFs, no matter their location (email, internet or my own files) or origination (even ones that I myself created only last week). When I click onto them in an email I get no response at all. When I click onto them in my own files it asks me what format i want to convert them to and then when i cancel it says that it can't open the doc. It appears that the program needed to read a PDF has simply been disabled. Perhaps I'm supposed to be signing into something?

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    3 replies

    ~graffiti
    Legend
    February 9, 2017

    Can you open Adobe Reader XI on it's own? If yes, can you then use File>Open to open a pdf file on your computer?

    If no to either, what exactly happens?

    Participant
    February 9, 2017

    I just switched to Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, which I can at least open (I couldn’t open XI at all- which I clicked onto the icon noting happened). I can now open PDFs from within the Adobe window but not if attached to an email. And I can’t save the PDFs elsewhere either, leaving them stuck in my email and unopenable.

    ~graffiti
    Legend
    February 9, 2017

    Are you accessing your email via a web browser? If so, it could be that the browser uses it's own pdf viewer and is incompatible with the Adobe Reader plug-in. The way around that would be to save the attachment from your email without trying to open it. Most if not all email clients online have that option. Not sure about the specifics of yours.

    Even if you aren't using a web based email client and are using something like Microsoft Outlook, you can usually click-drag a file to your desktop and open it from there using Reader.