Opening PDF Files

Opening PDF Files

PDF (Portable Document Format) files are a common format in which documents are made available on the Internet for use across a variety of platforms. PDF files can be opened using the free reader provided by Adobe. You must have the Adobe Acrobat Reader to open PDF files.

If you are having problems opening PDF files on NAMI San Diego's Web site, please do the following.

Make sure you have the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in version. There are multiple versions of the reader currently being used and older versions have had problems with reading some documents. If you have Adobe Acrobat version 5.0 or older, you may experience difficulty on some PDF files. A newer, more current version is available for free at the Adobe Web Site. If you think you have the Acrobat plug-in but are still unable to view Acrobat content, you may need a more recent version of the plug-in.

Make sure you have successfully installed the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in. JUST DOWNLOADING THE FILE DOES NOT INSTALL THE PLUG-IN! After you download the plug-in you must go to the location where you downloaded the file on your local hard drive and double-click on the executable file (.exe file) to install the plug-in to your browser. This is a self extracting file that will launch an installation program to install the plug-in. Follow the instructions provided by the installation program to complete the installation of the plug-in to your browser. Once you have installed the plug-in, close all current Internet browser sessions and start a new Internet browser session. This will reload the new version of the plug-in.

Try saving the PDF file, you want to view, to your local hard drive and then opening and printing it from there. To save a PDF file to your local hard drive, right-click on the link and select 'Save Target As..' or 'Save Link As..' and make a note of where you have saved it. Once the file has been saved to your local hard drive, you can open it from there and view and print directly using Acrobat Reader.

Problems printing PDF files? PDF files may be displayed within the browser window or a separate Acrobat Reader window may open to display a file. If you are viewing the file within the browser window you should use the Print button on the Acrobat toolbar, and not the browser's print button. Before printing the file make sure that it has all downloaded by scrolling to the end of the document. (Some PDF files on our website are quite large and may take some time to download completely.)

If you have the latest version of the product and still have problems, visit the Adobe Acrobat Reader Support site for help with the following issues: