Skip to main content

Opening PDF files withing Firefox 3.0

By
Sorry, no news about Owen and Marcus in this post. They're doing great, but I just wanted to do a quick post about Firefox 3 which may save many of my fellow astronomers/Mac users some time and effort.

I just spent most of my morning trying to figure out how to get Firefox 3 to open PDF files within a browser tab like Safari. I was about to give up and go back to my two-browser approach (Firefox for viewing with ad-blocking, Safari for reading astro-ph, etc.) when I finally came across this solution:

http://code.google.com/p/firefox-mac-pdf/

It turns out all you have to do is install a simple PDF plugin and you're in business. Surprisingly this is not anywhere on the Firefox Support webpage, nor is it in the many Mac/Firefox forums I read through (most of these were all, "Just use Safari. Mehhhhh meh MEEHHH!")

The only glitch I ran into is that the first PDF file I tried to open looked like a blank file with a huge horizontal scroll bar. The problem turned out to be that the default viewer setting was at the maximum zoom, so I was only looking at the upper left corner. I zoommed out by right-clicking and selecting "Actual Size" and then it was just like I was reading PDF files in Safari.

Comments

Karin said…
How is firefox 3? I have a hard time living without the little RSS updates in my bookmarks bar in Safari (hence the quick reply to your blog post!). But I've considered the swtich. Good to know that the pdf thing works!
August 27, 2008 at 5:33 PM
JohnJohn said…
I don't use RSS feeds, but I need to start. There are a lot of friends with new babies updating their blogs frequently, so it's time for me to get with the program. I'll let you know what I find about Firefox's RSS skillz.
August 27, 2008 at 5:51 PM
Anonymous said…
I use Nitro PDF download as a Firefox extension on my Windows machine - it allows me to open PDFs in a new tab, view as HTML, or save onto the hard drive.
August 28, 2008 at 12:40 PM
Anonymous said…
so in general, for a non-super user mac type person like myself, going to firefox 3 is a good thing or a bad thing?
August 28, 2008 at 9:58 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A view from your shut down

By
The Daily Dish has been posting reader emails reporting on their " view from the shutdown ." If you think this doesn't affect you, or if you know all too well how bad this is, take a look at the growing collection of poignant stories. No one is in this alone except for the nutjobs in the House. I decided to email Andrew with my own view. I plan to send a similar letter to my congressperson. Dear Andrew, I am a professor of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The CfA houses one of the largest, if not the largest collection of PhD astronomers in the United States, with over 300 professional astronomers and roughly 100 doctoral and predoctoral students on a small campus a few blocks west of Harvard Yard. Under the umbrella of the CfA are about 20 Harvard astronomy professors, and 50 tenure-track Smithsonian researchers. A large fraction of the latter are civil servants currently on furlough and unable to come to work. In total, 147 FTEs
Post a Comment
Read more

back-talk begins

By
me: "owen, come here. it's time to get a new diaper" him, sprinting down the hall with no pants on: "forget about it!" he's quoting benny the rabbit, a short-lived sesame street character who happens to be in his favorite "count with me" video. i'm turning my head, trying not to let him see me laugh, because his use and tone with the phrase are so spot-on.
4 comments
Read more

The Long Con

By
Hiding in Plain Sight ESPN has a series of sports documentaries called 30 For 30. One of my favorites is called Broke  which is about how professional athletes often make tens of millions of dollars in their careers yet retire with nothing. One of the major "leaks" turns out to be con artists, who lure athletes into elaborate real estate schemes or business ventures. This naturally raises the question: In a tightly-knit social structure that is a sports team, how can con artists operate so effectively and extensively? The answer is quite simple: very few people taken in by con artists ever tell anyone what happened. Thus, con artists can operate out in the open with little fear of consequences because they are shielded by the collective silence of their victims. I can empathize with this. I've lost money in two different con schemes. One was when I was in college, and I received a phone call that I had won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas. All I needed to d
8 comments
Read more