Open PDF files in adobe Reader instead in Explorer

Question

In Sharepoint document library, i have uploaded many documents of different types MS word, excel and PDF. When i click on MS Word or MS Excel documents, they are opened in Microsoft Word or Excel applications. But when i click on PDF files, they are not opened in Adobe Reader application but they are opened in Internet Explorer instead. I want to change this behavior to open PDF files in Reader instead. How this behavior can be changed?

Answer 1

If the PDF files are opened in the browser, then it means you have either configured the Permissive mode in Browser File Handling, or added the PDF extension to the allowed MIME type list.

To have the PDFs opened in Acrobat, you should disable the Permissive mode (and set it to Strict mode) and if it is already Strict, then remove the PDF extension from the allowed MIME type list.

# set BrowserFileHandling property as Strict
$wa = Get-SPWebApplication <web-App-URL>
$wa.BrowserFileHandling = 'Strict'
$wa.Update()

# remove PDF from MIME type list
$wa = Get-SPWebApplication <web-App-URL>
$wa.AllowedInlineDownloadedMimeTypes.Remove('application/pdf')
$wa.Update()

Read more: https://www.sharepointdiary.com/2011/04/open-pdf-document-browser-sharepoint2010.html

Answer 2

To make your PDF files to open using adobe reader application.You need to remove the allow mime types(

AllowedInlineDownloadedMimeTypes

) property of the web application. This is usually done via powershell and you need to be admin on the server. Please do check if the mime type is added to the existing web application before removing it.

$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication("http://webappurl")
$WebApp.AllowedInlineDownloadedMimeTypes.Remove("application/pdf")
$webApp.Update()

Please note that this will be a web application level setting and it might affect all sites under the web application.

For more detailed scenarios .Check this Microsoft wiki page to Broswer File Handling

Answer 3

The easiest solution is to disable the Adobe reader add-on in Internet Explorer. That will force the PDF to open in the application instead of the browser. But, each individual user would have to do that.

Answer 4

Hkey_Current_User\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\Originals.
Create a Dword "bBrowserIntegration" with value: 0

The correct registry path (.reg file) is: - Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 - [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\Originals] - "bBrowserIntegration"=dword:00000000

This worked for me.