Word wants to open PDF file it created via "Save as"

[DavidRCowe]

I created a PDF file via Word's "Save as PDF" function (Mac OSX). However, when someone on a Windows machine downloaded it, and opened it, the default was to open it in Microsoft Word. This meant that only some of the form functionality was supported (as opposed to opening it in Acrobat).

When I created the PDF file with "Print" instead of "Save as", this problem went away.

[Dov Isaacs]

What likely happened is that when you used MacOS Word's “save as PDF” function, it saved the file with the suffix .docx as opposed to adding the suffix .pdf. In other words, if your original MacOS Word document was foo.docx, it was saved as a PDF file with the name foo.docx instead of either foo.pdf or even foo.docx.pdf.

          - Dov

[DavidRCowe]

No, definitely not. The file had a .pdf extension. I even checked to make sure that the extension was visible, as OSX has the ability to selectively hide extensions.

[gary_sc]

Hi DavidRCowe,

Quick question (with a few extra questions tossed in).

Does this happen only with this one document or with others as well?

If it is with this one document, select the document in the Finder and do a Get Info on the document (Command-i). On the bottom of the long narrow window that pops up, what does it say to open this document with?

For example, here is shows that this document is supposed to be opened with Acrobat. What does it say for your document that's giving you problems?

[DavidRCowe]

I can't see the image you uploaded, but I created another file with "Save as PDF" from Word and it shows (on the Mac) that it is to be opened with Adobe Acrobat Pro. Word is not even listed as the alternative suggested applications.

Word appears in the title ("Microsoft Word - <my title>") and as "Content Creator".

If I create the PDF using the Print dialog box, the title is just my title, without the "Microsoft Word -" prefix. The Content Creator is still set to "Word".

There is no problem opening it on OSX where I created it. Running Windows 10 in Parallels it defaults to opening in the Edge Browser. If I go to change that various applications are listed, not including Word.

[gary_sc]

Hi David,

Oh, sorry about that. Here it is again at the bottom of this message (at a minimum so you could see what I was talking about).

You didn't tell me if this is the only document suffering from this issue or if there were others.

I do expect Word's export to provide the PDF suffix. I'm just wondering if there's any chance that this was changed. It can be done (I just did it but it would have to be an intentional act). But when I tried to open this document it went to word and because it didn't recognize the structure of the document it asked me to tell it what kind of document it was. (In other words, it wasn't going to happen.

I'm not saying this DID happen, only that it could possible explain what you are seeing.

[DavidRCowe · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your interest in this problem. So far it is only one file (albeit recreated from the same Word source file multiple times).

I checked the email that I originally sent and the file most definitely had the ".pdf" extension. The person receiving it on windows also reported the .pdf extension, but it still opened with Word. I thought Windows was pretty basic with it's file opening routine (i.e. basing everything on the extension) but maybe newer versions of Windows take other things into consideration.

[gary_sc]

HI David,

As you're probably aware, back in the old days before OS X, the Mac had to two forks in the code, one of which had all of the file's information and data and the other was to tell the OS what application created the file. That's why, back in those old days, you didn't need to identify what application was used by using the suffix, it already knew. When OS X came along, along came the suffix for application identification. It is possible in OS X to not show that suffix but in spirit, it's there.

FWIW, I just about NEVER use an application's PDF creator, I just use the OS's creator (the PDF creator within the Print Dialog. The only exception to this is from Adobe Applications. Since they originally developed the PDF format, their pretty good at following the rules. Not everyone else is. Apple does pretty good, ergo the Print to PDF just mentioned.

I guess the safe warning here is to keep it simple and Print to PDF.

Have a great weekend!