Indigo Jones

Hi Folks,
At some point, I upgraded the Adobe Reader on my eMac (running OS 10.3.9) to version 6 from Version 5. Whenever I dragged a PDF file to the Version 6 application icon or to the alias on the dock, the document opened fine in Version 6. However, if I just double-clicked on the icon it would open up in Version 5, even though I've searched the system and I can't find any Version 5 components anywhere. I recently upgraded to Adobe Reader Version 7 and the same thing is happening. Has anyone had a similar issue with Adobe Reader or would you like to take a guess Version 5 is hiding?
Thanks!

mguertin

Just get info on one of your PDF documents. From that window you can "Set All" to make all the PDF's open in whatever version of acrobat you choose.

That said I gave up on acrobat reader ages ago and use preview as it handles most of my needs fine and is much faster!

krs

Preview seems to have its own compatibility problems.
In the 'get info' panel on my pdf documents I have three choices for preview, preview 2.0, 2.0.1 and 3.0.1.
Naturally I choose 3.0.1 assuming it's the latest and greatest. But when I try to open a pdf document, I get the message: "The application cannot be launched because this system is incompatible"
I assume by 'system' they mean operating system, not Mac system - not terribly clear.
If I go back to Preview 2.0.1, the file usually opens.

I currently use OS 9.2.2, OS 10.2.8 and OS 10.4.2 on the same Mac for different applications as required. Adobe Reader 7 doesn't seem to care which OS I'm in, preview it seems does.

mguertin

Preview 2.x is for OSX 10.2.x and 10.3.x, preview 3.x only works in 10.4 and newer IIRC.

krs

Thanks, I though something like this was the case.
I wonder why Apple refuses to make software backwards compatible; my company develops commercial software for the communication industry and backwards compatibitilty is an absolute "must" requirement for at least three major releases back.
Our customers would like it to be forward compatible as well and we manage to accomplish that in most cases.

I have to 'play' a bit with Adobe Reader 7, but I haven't run into any obvious compatibility issues with it.

PS: I just played with 'preview' a bit. The software actually has a bug (or what we would consider a bug in the communication industry).
If you set up either a jpg or a gif file to use preview 3.0.1 to open this file in OS 10.2.8, it works just fine. And if you then check which version of preview was used to open the file, it shows 2.0.1 as the version that was used to open the file.
Checking under 'Get Info' for that particular file afterwards still shows version 3.0.1 as the one selected to open the file.
That is the way preview should work with pdf files as well.....clearly a bug in the pdf implementation of preview 3.x.

mguertin

hehe well something sounds buggy there for sure, but it doesn't seem to have anything to dow with the "pdf implementation" in preview.

Indigo Jones

Thanks for the suggestion mguertin. Could you tell me which menu the "get info" option is in? I can't seem to find it in Adobe version 5 or 7.
Cheers,
IJ

krs

'get info' is not in the application, it's in the contextual menu of every file.
Select any pdf file on your Mac with a single click, then, if you have a two-button mouse, push the right mouse button and you will see a drop down menu with one of the items being 'get info'
Select it (with the left mouse button) and go down to 'open with'. The rest should be obvious.

If you don't use a two-button mouse, holding the 'control' key down while clicking does the same as a right click.

Indigo Jones

Oops. Thought that sounded familiar...