Interactive PDF is not compatible with all browsers

It's 2021 and we're still dealing with the same question posed by Sanjay a year ago in Q1 with no one from Adobe being able to give a logical and satisfactory answer. How do you make a PDF link viewed in a browser open in a new window?
... reading complaints from people in forums with the same need followed by the same lame excuses from Adobe 'experts' telling us that it doesn't work, but no viable solutions and no developers trying to fix the problem.

By @davidg9502748

@davidg9502748, @sanjay_kothari and everyone else, please don't shoot the messenger when you read this.

We "Adobe experts" have no control over this. We're just unpaid volunteer users who try to help others in this forum.

You don't have any control over this, either.

And neither does Adobe because Adobe can't control what a browser does to a PDF file.

We're all PO'd about how crappy this is for users and us developers and designers.

Background:
(Long, because this thread gets "hit" by many users and I'm sick of this issue popping up on the forums a few times a week. I want everyone to fully understand what's behind this problem.)

Although originally developed and copyrighted by Adobe, the PDF file format is now in the public domain. It is monitored by the ISO (International Standards Organization, Geneva) where the PDF standard (the list of rules and processes required for a file to be called a "PDF") is developed, updated, and maintained by several related committees of experts from around the world.

Note: I'm a US delegate to some of those PDF committees and help write the main PDF standard as well as the PDF/UA companion standard for accessibility. I keep my head in the PDF/A (archival) and PDF/X (print) committees, too. Adobe is on all of the PDF committees, but really is just another delegate with equal control over the standards, although their engineers are the top PDF experts in the world.

Two tech terms to know before I continue with what's behind this problem and how we might, together, get it improved and (let's dream big!) corrected by the industry.

A PDF Producer is a program that creates PDF files. Examples: PDF Maker by Adobe that you find in MS Office/Windows, the PDF Export utility in Adobe InDesign, Save As PDF in MS Office (it's made for MS by FoxIt), Save as PhantomPDF in MS Office, Save As Nuance PDF, iText, OpenText's Extream, and other brands of PDF producers.

Open a PDF, go to File / Document Properties / Description tab. Towards the bottom left of that screen, you'll see what producer created that PDF, along with its version number.

Anyone can make a PDF, but it must comply with the ISO international standards: the main standard is ISO 32000-2:2020 (https://www.iso.org/standard/75839.html) and because we're talking about interactivity, it should also comply with the ISO 14289 PDF/UA-1 companion standard for digital accessibility (https://www.iso.org/standard/64599.html ). Hope you enjoy reading these 1500+ pages of techno-babble!

Most PDFs we examine at my shop are not anywhere near being fully compliant with the standards. That negatively affects the next term described below...

A PDF Processor is a program that opens, reads, and makes the content available to the user. The processor should also make all of the interactivity available, too, such as executing hyperlinks, executing a fuction when a button is clicked, playing audio/video clips, allowing commenting and annotations to the file, filling of form fields, executing scripts, whatever you and I build into the PDF file itself.

The programming for this interactivity is specified in the standards above, and when a processor follows the standards, it is considered a PDF Compliant Processor (for the base PDF file) or a PDF Compliant Interactive Processor (for the interactive parts of the PDF file).

The problem:

Has a lot of facets and troublemakers.

1. A lot of PDFs (I personally think the majority) are not compliant PDFs.
   They don't fully follow the ISO 32000 standards, let alone the ISO 14289 standards for accessibility. They were not produced correctly by the PDF Producer.
   Solution: complain to the software manufacturer that created the PDF. If they don't get their act together, switch producers. Adobe's producers are still the gold standard of the industry, but FoxIt and PhamtomPDF are decent seconds. (Disclaimer: I receive no compensation from these companies.)
    
2. Web browsers are not compliant PDF processors.
   Sighted users like most of us here can see the PDF in the browser, but all of the interactive features are lost, as well as all of the accessibility. Even printing the PDF can be a nightmare.
   Solution: complain to the web browser manufacturers, especially the big 3 — Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. THEY need to build a compliant PDF processor into their browser. No one else can successfully do this (see #4).
    
3. Apple's Preview isn't a compliant PDF processor, either.
   Looks like a PDF, but sure doesn't act like one!
   Solution: complain to Apple to retool this app into compliance. It's a royal PITA on Apple's OSs. Fakes out nearly every Apple user at some point.
    
4. PDF Plug-ins for browsers are buggy as heck.
   None of them work. Eventually, they become unstable and crash the browser, which usually forces the operating system to disable the plug-in. And they are lousy PDF-compliant processors, too, leaving out the interactivity. I sometimes wonder if the browsers are sabotaging the plug-ins to take control over the PDF's content. Maybe? It's a wierd world.
   Solution: don't depend on plug-ins! What works today won't tomorrow.
    
5. As Bob Levine @BobLevine said above, PDF interactivity on a website is a crapshoot.
   Or maybe more like Russian Roulette...you'll eventually take the bullet and the PDF will die.

So complain to the all of the browser manufacturers:

• Apple Safari — https://www.apple.com/safari/
• Google Chrome — https://www.google.com/chrome/index.html
• Microsoft Edge — https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge
• Opera — https://www.opera.com/
• FireFox — https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/

Get them to build in fully compliant PDF processors with full accessibility (aka, interactivity) per the ISO 32000-2:2020 and ISO 14289 PDF/UA-1 standards. Quote those standards, please, so that they get the message from you loud and clear.

And in the meantime, here's a workaround we use on our clients' websites: whenever a PDF is on your website, instruct users to download the PDF to their device rather than double-click it and open it their browser (where it's dead). They can then open the downloaded copy with their preferred PDF reader (such as the free Acrobat Reader or any other brand) and interact with it as they wish.

There's a benefit to your users when they download it: they can then annotate it with comments and highlights, and save all of that to their computer for future reference. Can't do that with HTML.

Apologies for the extra-long length. It's such a complicated issue.

Thanks, BobLevine

We are already using Captivate and Storyline, But if Adobe adds these features in PDF it would be great. Because now in the future every people want a compact and shareable thing which is light and play in every device. We can put the whole eLearning course in one PDF. People do not want to seat in front of the system. This is my thought.

Thanks, Derek