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A
Anonymous
September 1, 2009
Question

Why will PDF not open from email?

  • September 1, 2009
  • 7 replies
  • 143445 views

I recently modified my Adobe Reader 9.1 (with instructions from the bank) to be able to electronically sign documents.

Since then I can not open any PDF documents from email.  I went back and reversed the changes I made. I uninstalled Adobe and reinstalled it. No luck.

I have to save the documents and open them from Windows Explorer.

Any Ideas?

This topic has been closed for replies.

7 replies

mitzlet
mitzlet
Participant
March 22, 2015

I have the same problem with Acrobat Reader 11.0.10 in OS 10.10.1. It happens almost 100% of the time! Happening for months. I uninstalled my previous Acrobat version with the uninstaller re downloaded it from Adobe site and it still doesn't work. These pdf's are from a government or other official sites.

Have never had a reply from Adobe or from anyone else.

Mitzlet

pwillener
pwillener
Legend
March 22, 2015

It would be more useful if you started a new topic with some details, instead of appending "I have the same problem" on a six year old topic.

kevino93348025
kevino93348025
Participant
February 11, 2015

How to fix it

Intuit recommends more than one solution for this problem. The first solution may solve your problem, or you may need to try all of them to resolve the issue. For best results, perform the solutions in the order shown.

Solution 1: Create or change the file association in the Control Panel.

  1. Click Start>Control Panel>Default Program>Associate a file type or protocol with a program.
  2. Locate .PDF and change the current default to Internet Explorer.

Solution 2: Check the default PDF Handler in the Adobe Reader Preferences.

  1. Open Adobe Reader X.
  2. Click the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
  3. Click the General tab on the left.
  4. Click the Select Default PDF Handler button.
  5. In the screen that pops up make sure the Select Adobe Product shows the current version Of Adobe Reader X.

Solution 3: Install a new PDF reader.

  1. Download and install a free PDF reader such as Foxit, and set it as the default program to open PDF files.
  2. Attempt to open a PDF from within QuickBooks.
  3. Verify that the PDF displays.
  4. Now, using the steps in Solution 1, change the default program back to Adobe Reader (if desired).
  5. Verify that PDF files still open without error.

Solution 4: Create a new Windows user

  • Attempting to open the attachment using a different Windows user will give us a premise to confirm any damage to the user account that is receiving the error.
  • If the attached PDF file opens under a new Windows user, you can continue to use QuickBooks under that new user or consult your computer tech
L
lightglobe
Participant
November 10, 2014

Hi All

If you right click on the PDF in the email and save it to your files. Then right click on the file and go open with eg: windows photo viewer or choose a default program for viewing files.

Once you do that you should be able to go back to the email and open any PDFs that are attached.

Hope this works for others

J
JuliD
Participant
November 22, 2009

I am losing my patients with Adobe.

Like a gazillion others no one has resolved this issue.

Receive a PDF attachment in my Outlook (full, not express) on my Vista computer. Click on the attachment and get the error "Create association in the Set Association Control Panel". Did that in the Default Programs folder and it WAS set to Adobe Reader 9.1.  Another fix was to run Adobe Reader under "Administrator", open Reader, go to Help and run the "repair"....NOTHING.  Another fix was to remove the file association on all .PDF and then restart and right click on a saved PDF and chose Adobe Reader and it will fix the problem...NOPE. Another fix was to uninstall and reinstall Adobe Reader...NOPE. The work around to save first then open works but why do we have to have a work around?  FIX IT!

MichaelKazlow
MichaelKazlow
Legend
November 24, 2009

You are not addressing Adobe here. We are fellow users. If you think you have a bug then you need to file a bug report:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

J
JuliD
Participant
November 24, 2009

I know this is a user blog and YES I have reported it but the reply I get is it is Microsoft, like the person a few posts above mine. It is ONLY PDF and not any other attachments including .doc. I have spent hours and hours for 3 weeks looking for a fix. I find user blogs the most helpful and hopefully someone has solved the problem and it was important that I list everything I have tried as not to get a repeat on what I have tried.

So in all my point in posting for help is to get help from users which is the purpose of this blog and also on the Microsoft user blogs.

C
cpmv2
Participant
September 23, 2009

This is highly annoying. All of my clients are reporting they can't open my PDFs:

"Acrobat could not open 'clientfile.pdf' because it is either not a supported file type of because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded)."

This was all working a couple of week ago. I wonder what changed?

Acrobat Pro 9.1.3 Sent from Apple Mail.app 3.6 and I am zipping the PDFs

S
SamSam55
Participant
September 2, 2009

I use thunderbird for Email and I am having a problem also when people send me any PDF files, whenever I try to open, I get an error that says "there was an error opening this document the file is damaged and could not be repaired" I tried everything from uninstalling adobe reader 9 to reinstallng 8 and still no luck...... Its very frusterating.. eventually I opened the same Email using outlook and I was able to open the PDF!!!! Can anyone help me with this issue I think its very similar to what the original poster had mentioned.... I appreciate all your help!!

A
Anonymous
September 2, 2009

SamSam55:

I'm running version 8 and rons03ultra is running version 9 so the problem dosn't seem to be version-related.  Whatever the cause of this problem, it appears that there are a number of people experiencing it.  And, it seems that it is something that has come about recently to users who were able to use Adobe Reader directly from their various email clients previously.  So, it doesn't appear to be email client-related either.  Well, I guess that's some progress.  We know what it's not related to.  And, so far, we all have alternate methods of reading the PDFs.  So, it could be worse.  But it sure would be nice to not have to use a workaround and have it back to working like it should!

~graffiti
~graffiti
Legend
September 3, 2009

speedo123 wrote:

SamSam55:

it appears that there are a number of people experiencing it. 

Yes. It's been that way for a very long time. Mostly they are hard issues to resolve and when they are resolved, they are mostly tracked back to the email client rather than Reader or Acrobat. That's not always the case but it's rare to see anything different.

Wish I had some more ideas for you but, I don't. Sorry.

A
Anonymous
September 1, 2009

I recently began having the same problem.  When I try to open an email pdf attachment, I get this type error message:

"Adobe Reader could not open 'Invoice.pdf' because it is either not a supported file type of because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded)."
I didn't realize that I would be able to open a saved pdf attachment until I read your post.  That's made life a bit easier, but a solution to this problem would be better.  Anyone know what's causing this?  I'm running version 8.  Until I saw this post, I was considering upgrading to version 9 to see if the problem would "go away," but I think it would be better to fix it before going to another version "just in case."  So, I guess I'll hold off to see if someone (maybe Adobe?) knows how to fix this.
~graffiti
~graffiti
Legend
September 1, 2009

It's hard to track down exactly what may be happening but the typical reason for this message is that your email client/service is using encoding to make the file transfer faster. When the service decodes it on your end, it doesn't recognize it as a PDF and corrupts the file.

To get around this, it is recommended that you have the party sending it either Zip it first so you can unzip it at your end or post it to a web space somewhere and email a link to you.

That may not be the only reason this issue comes up but it is by far the most common.

As for the original poster, can you post a sample PDF so we can look at it?

A
Anonymous
September 1, 2009

Graffiti,

This is a typical PDF file that I receive.


If I try to open it from the email I do not get an error code. Instead it gets sent to a designated holding folder where I save files temporarily.

I then go to that designated file, double click it, and it opens right up.


See what you can do.


Thanks

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