Frequently Asked Questions About PDFs
- "I'm trying to read a PDF online, but it is very hard to do."
PDFs are designed to be printed out and read, but if you prefer to read them online, you may find it easier if you increase the view size to 125%.
- "I'm having trouble printing PDFs using Adobe Acrobat on Macintosh or Windows. What can I do?"
Try printing one page at a time or to a newer printer.
Try saving the file to disk before printing rather than opening it "on the fly." This requires that you configure your browser to "Save" rather than "Launch Application" for the file type "application/pdf," and can usually be done in the "Helper Applications" options.
Make sure you are using the latest version of Adobe's Acrobat Reader. See Help with Printing for details.
If the file is taking more than 10 minutes to download, see Tips for users experiencing slow response.
- "After downloading, I can't open the PDF file with Acrobat Reader.
I get a message: 'There was an error opening this document. Could not repair file.'"
It's likely that the file was incompletely downloaded, or corrupted during the network transfer. Your best bet is to try a fresh download of the file. If that doesn't work, please send us feedback and we'll investigate.
- "I'm having problems downloading PDF files. My browser downloads
about 20% of the file and then stops. Any suggestions?"
This problem is frequently caused by unusually high network traffic, and the best solution is to try downloading the files at a time when transatlantic network traffic is lighter -- generally when the east coast of the US is not at work. You might also look at Europace's Site for Readers Outside of USA/Canada
- "Can I just check a box next to all the papers I want PDFs for and download them all at once?"
Unfortunately, there's no way to implement a feature like this; Web browsers currently do not support automated simultaneous downloads.