If you’re using Safari 12 or later, you can enable a setting to open certain file types inline in Safari rather than downloading them. The process of opening documents in Safari, instead of automatically downloading them to your Mac, depends on both the type of document and the version of Safari you’re running. How do I open documents in Safari and view them instead of them automatically downloading them to my Mac? If you don’t, then your browser may not be compatible with the PDF’s file format. Try downloading a fresh copy of the PDF and opening it.įinally, if you’re trying to open a PDF in your web browser, then make sure you have the latest version of your web browser installed. If you try to open it and the PDF viewer gives you some kind of error message, this could be the issue. On Macs, Adobe Acrobat Reader and Apple’s preview app are the two most commonly-used PDF viewers, so if you don’t have one of them installed, you won’t be able to open the PDF in question.Īnother potential issue is the PDF may be corrupted.

The most likely culprit is that you don’t have the correct PDF viewer installed. After this, when you attempt to open a PDF in Safari, it should open in a new window instead of automatically downloading.

Close the Preferences window and close Safari in order for the changes to take effect. This will instruct Safari to open PDFs instead of downloading them. From here, you can select ‘Open in Preview’ from the selections provided. Find the ‘PDF Documents’ option in the left sidebar and click it. On the preferences screen, select ‘Websites’ at the top of the window. Next, select ‘Preferences’ from the dropdown menu. First, open Safari and click the gear icon in the top right corner of the window.

In order to get Safari to open PDFs instead of downloading them, you will need to change some settings. How do I get Safari to open PDF instead of downloading? If you’re still having difficulty opening PDF files, it’s best to contact your IT support team for more help. Overall, you may not be able to open PDF files in Safari if you don’t have the right software installed, have an outdated version of the Safari browser, or the file is corrupted. You can try downloading the file again to see if it solves the problem. If this is the case, you won’t be able to open the file in any browser. Certain versions may not be able to open PDF files, so if your device does not have the most recent version, you may have difficulty opening PDF files.įinally, the file you are trying to open may be corrupted. The second reason why you may not be able to open PDF files in Safari is because your device does not have the latest version of the Safari browser.

My mac will not open pdf files