Downloading and Viewing PDFs

To ensure optimal viewing of PDFs online, verify that you are using the most current production version of your PDF viewing software. Acrobat Reader is available as a free download from the Adobe site.

If you are having problems viewing PDFs in your browser window within the framed page, try:

  • opening the PDF in a new browser window - follow the "Show PDF in full window" link in the framed PDF view;
  • saving a copy of the PDF to your desktop before opening it - right click (or control-click) on the "Show PDF in full window" link in the content box of the framed PDF view to save the file;
  • disabling the option to view the PDF in your browser - in Acrobat Reader, this option is found in Preferences>Internet>Web Browser Options. If you uncheck the "Display PDF in browser" option, PDFs will open in a separate Adobe Reader window rather than within your browser window.

If you only see the first page of a multi-page PDF, you can disable the "Allow fast web view" option in the Acrobat Reader preferences (Internet>Web Browser Options). If you uncheck this option, the entire PDF will download before it is displayed. However, if this option is selected, the "Allow speculative downloading in the background" option should also be selected so that the entire document is downloaded for viewing.

If you encounter problems downloading a specific PDF, please send us a message with the article citation and URL so that we may investigate.

Macintosh Firefox users:

Adobe does not directly support a plug-in version of Acrobat Reader for the Macintosh version of Firefox. All PDFs will open in a separate Acrobat Reader window unless you have installed an alternate Firefox plug-in.