Sep 24, 2018 - To enable the Acrobat/Reader plug-in in Internet Explorer, see the. In Mac OS X or OS X Mountain Lion: Enable and disable the root user.
Google Chrome is a browser that is growing in popularity. I’ve recently switched to Chrome, myself.
There’s a lot to like about the Chrome browser:
- Fast
- Excellent bookmark handling
- Protected Mode (sandboxed) for more secure browsing and prevention of phishing attacks
- Built-in Google Sync to keep all your bookmarks synchronized across your computers
Chrome offers built-in basic PDF viewing and PDF conversion of web pages.
Nice as this sounds, Chrome can’t display every kind of PDF. When that happens, you’ll see this message
Chrome also lacks some of Reader (and Acrobat’s) navigational features such as Previous View and Next View.
Since Chrome is growing in popularity, of late I’ve received quite a few questions about PDF in Chrome:
- How do I get Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) to work in Google Chrome?
- How do I turn off the Chrome PDF viewer?
- Why does Chrome make huge PDFs?
- How do I get Chrome to print PDFs as text?
In this blog article, I’ll show you how to:
- Use Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) as the default PDF Viewer in Chrome
- How to create smaller, better quality PDFs from Chrome
Turning off Chrome’s Built-in PDF Viewer and using Adobe Reader or Acrobat instead
To turn off the Chrome PDF viewer, follow these steps:
- Install Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat if it is not already installed
- Open Google Chrome
- In the address bar, type . . .
about:plugins
(that’s the word about a colon (:), then plugins - The Plug-ins Tab will open
- Scroll down until you see either Adobe Acrobat or Reader.
Click the Enable link - Close the Plug-ins tab and restart Chrome.
Better PDF Printing from Chrome
Chrome has some nice printing features such as a built-in page preview and an ink-saving black and white option.
Unfortunately, Chrome creates huge PDFs. In my testing on this page of my blog, the file size difference was astounding:
- Chrome-generated PDF: 11.8 MB
- Acrobat-generated PDF: 953K
On some web pages, Chrome also rasterizes the text creating image-only PDFs. This was always the case in previous versions of Chrome, but it appears to be fixed in the Chrome version I tested (15.0.874.121 m).
If you have Acrobat installed, you can instead print a compact 'electronic' PDF with searchable text.
Here’s how:
- In Chrome, go to the web page you want to print
- Type CTRL-P to open the Chrome print preview window
- I the lower left corner of the window, click 'Print using system dialog'
- In the Print window, choose the AdobePDF print driver, then click the Print button.
What’s the difference?
I’ve highlighted the differences below, but in a nutshell:
- The Chrome PDF is more than ten times bigger
- The Chrome PDF isn’t searchable
- You can’t select text in the Chome-generated PDF
- View quality is impacted
Chrome Page printed with Acrobat |
953K |
File Preview at 400% |
Related Articles
- 1 Word Document Creation Tools
- 2 Open Word Files in Older Versions of Microsoft Office Word
- 3 I Forgot My PDF Password
- 4 Can't Use Adobe Acrobat in Snow Leopard
In the early days of the Adobe Acrobat product line, PDF files enabled content producers to make their work available to people who lacked the software, graphics and font resources necessary to view their original documents. Today, free and paid versions of Acrobat software can help businesses like yours distribute forms and process responses to them, produce downloadable product guides and documentation, share project proposals in password-protected files, and distribute interactive documents that incorporate movies and sound.
Development History
Adobe Systems debuted version 1.0 of the PDF file format at the 1992 Comdex trade show. The Acrobat tools for manipulating and editing PDF files reached the market the following year at hefty price tags, including $695 for a personal edition of Acrobat Distiller that only created files and $50 for Acrobat Reader, the initial version of today's free Adobe Reader. With the release of Acrobat 3.0 in 1996, the link between PDF and Web browser became a reality, and third parties began developing powerful applications to take advantage of the PDF file format in the publishing industry. Since those early days, the product has dominated information exchange, incorporating hosts of new features into each succeeding version.
Adobe Reader
This free application supports a range of operating systems, including Windows, the Mac OS, Linux, Solaris and Android, in 35 languages from Arabic to Ukrainian. The former Acrobat Reader enables you to complete, sign and certify forms; review and comment on documents; convert PDF text to Microsoft Word or Excel; search for and copy specific terms or content; and print and save files with your responses and comments. If the creator of a PDF file protects its content using Adobe's security provisions, some or all of these functions may be inaccessible in the free Reader application.
Adobe Acrobat
Now available in Standard and Professional editions, the paid Adobe Acrobat application provides resources designed to edit and produce PDF documents, and incorporate form fields and interactivity into files produced from virtually any application that can print. The Professional edition adds print production tools, preflighting capabilities and job definition formats designed for the prepress industry and graphic design. These tools enable you to analyze documents for problems that may interfere the files' use as a production resource for press-printed output.
Considerations
Adobe's stratification of the paid Acrobat product line into tiered versions with varying levels of functionality complicates your choice of which version to purchase. Unless you need advanced prepress tools, you may find that Acrobat Standard gives you the capabilities you need, including the ability to create and customize forms. Employees who don't need the paid version's creation and analysis tools can use the free Reader software to view in-house documentation.
References (5)
About the Author
Elizabeth Mott has been a writer since 1983. Mott has extensive experience writing advertising copy for everything from kitchen appliances and financial services to education and tourism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from Indiana State University.
Photo Credits
- Robert Giroux/Getty Images News/Getty Images
![Plugin Plugin](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125859761/202932142.jpg)
Choose Citation Style
Mott, Elizabeth. 'Adobe Acrobat Vs. Adobe Reader.' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/adobe-acrobat-vs-adobe-reader-53897.html. Accessed 24 November 2019.
Mott, Elizabeth. (n.d.). Adobe Acrobat Vs. Adobe Reader. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/adobe-acrobat-vs-adobe-reader-53897.html
Mott, Elizabeth. 'Adobe Acrobat Vs. Adobe Reader' accessed November 24, 2019. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/adobe-acrobat-vs-adobe-reader-53897.html
Note: Depending on which text editor you're pasting into, you might have to add the italics to the site name.