Trouble opening a PDF form (getting blank tab)
I'm having an issue in Firefox on Windows 7. My company's intranet has a PDF form that I need to complete but it won't open properly. With the option for PDF files set to "Use Adobe Reader", the PDF opens in a new tab but the error “This PDf document contains forms. This filling of form fields is not supported.” is shown. When I change the option to "Use Adobe Acrobat (In Firefox)", a blank tab is shown. Normally selecting "Use Adobe Acrobat (In Firefox)" works and that is what is set on other computers. I just won't work on this one. I've upgraded from Firefox 29 to 33 and that did not help. Can anyone help me?
Isisombulu esikhethiweyo
Thanks for your help but that did not solve my problem. I ended up removing Firefox then deleting the %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla folder and temp files. After a reboot and installation of Firefox 34.0.5 PDF forms started behaving correctly.
Funda le mpendulo kwimeko leyo 👍 0All Replies (3)
Hmm, "Use Adobe Reader" should launch the PDF outside of Firefox in the stand-alone Adobe Reader application, so seeing it in a tab is something of a puzzle.
Could you check your version of Adobe Reader? For Windows 7, you normally would have the Reader XI series (Reader 11), which has had several updates. From inside Adobe Reader, you can use Help > Check for Updates to make sure it's current.
In Firefox, could you check your Adobe Acrobat plugin version or possibly versions? You can view that on the Add-ons page. Either:
- Ctrl+Shift+a
- "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons
In the left column, click Plugins. If you find multiple versions, this can cause problems and may need to be cleaned up manually (post back on that for suggestions).
Sometimes, the settings file which stores those download handler preferences becomes corrupted and there's not much else to do than to rename or remove that file and let Firefox rebuild it.
To do that, open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button. This will launch a new window (Windows Explorer window) listing various settings files.
Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:
- "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
- (menu bar) File > Exit
Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then rename mimeTypes.rdf to something like mimeTypes.old
Start Firefox back up again and "PDF Files" should be back to their default setting of "Preview in Firefox". Try changing that to "Use Adobe Acrobat (in Firefox)" and test to see whether there's any improvement.
Isisombululo esiKhethiweyo
Thanks for your help but that did not solve my problem. I ended up removing Firefox then deleting the %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla folder and temp files. After a reboot and installation of Firefox 34.0.5 PDF forms started behaving correctly.
For anyone else reading this thread, I would try using Firefox's Reset feature before completely deleting all personal data by removing the profile folder.
Article on that: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings