The majority of current browsers enable PDF files to be viewed automatically within the browser, however everyone’s setting may be different. The below sets out various ways to turn on and off the settings associated with PDF viewing:
Chrome:
- Click the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the chrome browser window.
- If you have a pending update (in Chrome), the three dots will instead be red.
- Select Settings
- Expand the Advanced section
- Under the Downloads section, click to toggle the Ask where to save each file before downloading question on or off. When toggled 'on', files will download as a PDF and when 'off' the PDF file will load within the browser.
Firefox:
- To enable PDF viewing ability while in the Firefox browser, you must turn the feature on by clicking the three parallel lines in the top right corner.
- Selecting ‘Options’.
- Under Files and Applications, select Applications and click the down arrow.
- From here, click the ‘Preview in Firefox’ option or ‘save file’ to download to your computer.
Edge:
- Edge will by default open PDF files within the browser.
- If you do wish to save the PDF to your desktop you can select the save icon located near the top right hand corner.
Safari:
- Safari has a PDF viewer contained within it and as such will open a PDF file by default in a new tab.
- However, if you wish to save the file to your desktop, you can do this by selecting files and then save as.