Viewing PDFs in Firefox for Android

[Rhino]

I'm running Firefox on my Android phone, which is at the 8.0 level of
Android.

For the past few years, whenever I've clicked on a link for a PDF on my
phone, I would get the option to download the file or view it in a
default program, along with the options Once and Always. Today, I
finally decided to "commit" since I always chose the View option and the
default viewer always displayed the PDF satisfactorily. I chose the
"ALWAYS" option and then tapped on the same viewer that has been there
since I bought the phone.

As soon as I did that, and then tested on a PDF, I found that it TRIED
to open the PDF but failed. I'm darned if I can see why that would
happen but it fails EVERY time I try to open a PDF.

How do I undo this decision? I've poked around in the settings but I
can't find any place that says program such-and-such will always open my
PDFs.

I've tried installing Acrobat as an app on the phone and as an add-on in
the browser, hoping that Firefox would see these programs and ask me if
I'd prefer to use one of them but that never happens; it just keeps
using the same program and failing every time.

Naturally, I am peeved that this program suddenly started failing the
moment I said I wanted to use it all the time to read PDFs. I'm also
peeved that the process to undo the decision isn't a little easier to find.

--
Rhino

[Jonathan Aquilina]

Good Morning,

This is not really a firefox issue at all here default app's is managed by android itself.

What kind of phone do you have?

Regards,
Jonathan

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[Jonathan Aquilina]

[Dave Royal]

I have Android 7.1 and use the simple MuPDF viewer.

Look in settings > Apps > (your viewer) > Defaults > Clear

Installing another viewer probably does it too. When I loaded Firefox Preview
it invited me to change the default browser,


--
(Remove numerics from email address)

[Wilson Bociano]

I installed another viewer and still cannot edit some PDFs.

[Wilson Bociano]

[Dave Royal]

On 20 Jun 2020 11:30:17 +0200 Wilson Bociano wrote:
>
>I installed another viewer and still cannot edit some PDFs.
>

'Edit' - do you mean view?
'Some pdfs' - are these files which don't have a .pdf extension?

Sometimes a website link which is not itself to a pdf file (it's .htm say)
ends up downloading a pdf. Financial statements often do that. If Android
doesn't recognise it you have to use the 'Open as' dialogue.

[Rhino]

On 2020-06-20 2:20 AM, Dave Royal wrote:
> I have Android 7.1 and use the simple MuPDF viewer.
>
> Look in settings > Apps > (your viewer) > Defaults > Clear
>
> Installing another viewer probably does it too. When I loaded Firefox Preview
> it invited me to change the default browser,
>
>

Sorry for the long delay in replying; I got side-tracked by a bunch of
other issues.

When I go to Settings/Apps and look for my viewer, I don't see ANY PDF
viewer. I'm looking for "pdf" somewhere in the name but there's nothing.
I had installed one PDF viewer as a Firefox add-on and removed it but
that doesn't seem to have changed anything. I installed MuPDF from the
Play Store but the only change was that the first time I clicked on a
link to a PDF, Firefox gave me a popup asking me how I wanted to open it
with several items on it; I chose "with an app" on the theory that it
would then let me choose MuPDF but all it did was try to open it with
the same app it has tried to use for the last few weeks. It fails to
open the PDF saying it is an invalid format.

I have a Samsung A5 (2017) running Android 8.0 Any idea what I can try
next?

--
Rhino

[Dave Royal]

On 3 Jul 2020 12:03:31 -0400 Rhino wrote:
>[On 2020-06-20 2:20 AM, Dave Royal wrote:]

>Sorry for the long delay in replying; I got side-tracked by a bunch of
>other issues.
>
>When I go to Settings/Apps and look for my viewer, I don't see ANY PDF
>viewer. I'm looking for "pdf" somewhere in the name but there's nothing.
>I had installed one PDF viewer as a Firefox add-on and removed it but
>that doesn't seem to have changed anything. I installed MuPDF from the
>Play Store but the only change was that the first time I clicked on a
>link to a PDF, Firefox gave me a popup asking me how I wanted to open it
>with several items on it; I chose "with an app" on the theory that it
>would then let me choose MuPDF but all it did was try to open it with
>the same app it has tried to use for the last few weeks. It fails to
>open the PDF saying it is an invalid format.
>
>I have a Samsung A5 (2017) running Android 8.0 Any idea what I can try
>next?
>

Sorry too for the even longer delay in noticing your reply. (I haven't
written a 'view threads with unread' filter yet!)

I usually read with MuPDF but tend not to set it as a default because if
I want to print the document (e.g. a bank statement) it's easier to use the
Brother print app. So I nornally get a dialogue like this (Android 7.1):
<https://www.cjoint.com/data/JGDkDFrTVDQ_Screenshot-20200729-112757.png>
and choose 'Just once'. An extra click, but easier than going through the
sharing rigmarole the one time in ten I want to print.

I didn't install the G-drive PDF viewer, so I assume it came with Android.

[Peter]

From what I've read on the web, the Google PDF reader appears to be the
Android 8 OS pdf viewer. It doesn't have its own icon and doesn't
appear as a discreet app in the apps lists within "settings" I couldn't
find any way to delete it, although it can be silenced by downloading a
stand-alone pdf reader app and making that app the default for opening
pdf files. Google PDF reader may be part of the Google Drive app, but
Google app code seems so deeply integrated into the Android OS that I
wouldn't suggest trying to delete Google Drive to see what happens!