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A
Anonymous
May 10, 2016
Answered

PDFs in Chrome only showing page 1 and not scrolling

  • May 10, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 10517 views

Hi,

I create documents in Indesign and then export to PDF to be placed on the web, but I've been experiencing problems with documents the past week or so; specifically, if I create a document that is A4 landscape, Chrome only displays the first page, it will not scroll.

Bizarrely, if I rotate the page it 'reveals' the rest of the document, and then allows me to scroll through it.

I have tried various page sizes and orientations and oddly this ONLY affects A4 landscape.

The PDF's display fine in all other browsers.

To eliminate issues, the same problem occurs when I create a PDF from MS Word (so it's not an Indesign issue)

and I DON'T have a problem when I create a PDF using a different PDF maker (so not a Chrome issue)

When I inspect the code for a troublesome PDF, I see there's a div id called "sizer" which is only recognising the size of the first page, and not the whole document as it does on PDFs which scroll correctly.

When I change the size within the div tag, the scrollbar appears, but still only the first page is visible (even though the scrollbar is moving).

I'm not a developer but maybe this might be helpful for someone who can investigate.

Thank you

In using:

Acrobat X (10.1.16)

I'm on Chrome 50.0.2661.94

Windows 7 Pro, SP1

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Karl Heinz Kremer

Welcome to the wonderful world of non-Adobe PDF viewers...

The Chrome browser does not use Adobe's PDF viewer plug-in (installed via either Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader) anymore. The Chrome developers starting to block access of plug-ins of a certain type (the type that among others the Adobe PDF viewer uses) a few years ago. This means that you are stuck with the built-in viewer that Chrome comes with. This is a Chrome issue, even though some PDF files do not trigger this problem. Because it is Chrome's PDF viewer, anything that goes wrong is a Chrome problem.

The only thing you can do (besides reporting this to the Chrome developers) is to instruct your users to not open the PDF file in Chrome, but download it instead, and then open it using Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader.

There are ways to test if a PDF file is opened in an Adobe PDF viewer, and otherwise display a page with information about how to open the file in Acrobat or Reader. This involves a combination of JavaScript, form fields and/or PDF layers.

1 reply

Karl Heinz Kremer
Community Expert
Karl Heinz KremerCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
May 10, 2016

Welcome to the wonderful world of non-Adobe PDF viewers...

The Chrome browser does not use Adobe's PDF viewer plug-in (installed via either Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader) anymore. The Chrome developers starting to block access of plug-ins of a certain type (the type that among others the Adobe PDF viewer uses) a few years ago. This means that you are stuck with the built-in viewer that Chrome comes with. This is a Chrome issue, even though some PDF files do not trigger this problem. Because it is Chrome's PDF viewer, anything that goes wrong is a Chrome problem.

The only thing you can do (besides reporting this to the Chrome developers) is to instruct your users to not open the PDF file in Chrome, but download it instead, and then open it using Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader.

There are ways to test if a PDF file is opened in an Adobe PDF viewer, and otherwise display a page with information about how to open the file in Acrobat or Reader. This involves a combination of JavaScript, form fields and/or PDF layers.

A
Anonymous
May 11, 2016

Thanks for your response. This is really useful in terms of understanding the problem.

Sadly (and this is in no way aimed at you) it doesn't help resolve my problem.

I've reported the issue to Chrome who seem less then bothered about solving it.

Thanks for your help.

pdf23762709
pdf23762709
Participant
June 11, 2023

An easy is to try opening the PDF in Incognito Mode with no extensions installed on Chrome. I recently had a conflict with another extension that caused the scrolling issue. I've found no problem with using Chrome's internal PDF viewer. Most of the time, the internal viewer is great for everyday use. I might only use Adobe's product when I need advanced features like layers, form editing, etc. Otherwise, it seems overkill to use a bloated program for what a basic PDF viewer can handle 99% of the time.

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