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Cannot use Open with... to open PDFs in Acrobat Reader

Asked by smanuel

I'm able to open pdf files with gnome-do using the "open" menu item. This opens the document in acrobat reader 8 (default pdf application). However, if I choose "open with" and then choose Adobe Reader 8, acrobat reader starts but doesn't open the document. Any ideas on why?

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Alex Launi (alexlauni) said : 		#1

I don't have Adobe, I just use evince so I can't really test this but I think I can explain why. The actions open their files in two different ways, file -> open uses xdg-open (gnome-open), open with uses the GNOME library and lets them handle it. This is probably a bug with the adobe reader .desktop file, can you tell me what the Exec line in the Desktop file is? Try putting %U after it, if it's not there already.

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smanuel (steven-d-manuel) said : 		#2

Alex,

Thanks for the reply.

Is the.desktop file "/usr/lib/Adobe/Reader8/Resource/Support/AdobeReader.desktop"? If so
it was only "acroread". I've added %U and it still doesn't open the file; only starts Acrobat Reader.
I've restarted gnome-do on the off chance this would help but it didn't change the behavior.

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Alex Launi (alexlauni) said : 		#3

Desktop files are usually in /usr/share/applications/

--
--Alex Launi

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smanuel (steven-d-manuel) said : 		#4

Alex,

Here you go:

smanuel@fingolfin:/usr/share/applications$ grep -ril pdf * | xargs grep -i exec
AdobeReader.desktop:Exec=acroread %U
evince.desktop:TryExec=evince
evince.desktop:Exec=evince %U

still just opens the application but not the file. Any way to debug? I've tried strace but I'm getting a lot
of noise and not much signal from this method.

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Corona (stefaniefauconnier) said : 		#5

Hi, I am struggling with the same problem. On my system (Ubuntu Hardy) there are three AcrobatReader.desktop files :

/home/username/.local/share/applications/AdobeReader.desktop
/usr/lib/Adobe/Reader8/Resource/Support/AdobeReader.desktop
/usr/share/applications/AdobeReader.desktop

I added %U in all three of them but that didn't help, now Acrobat opens with the error "There was an error opening this document. This file cannot be found" if I use the "open-with" command in gnome-do.

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Best Corona (stefaniefauconnier) said : 		#6

Sorry for double posting but I think I found a solution. If you add %f to the exec line instead of %U , it works. You might have to run locate AdobeReader.desktop to edit every desktop file on your system - I suppose editing the file in your home folder should be enough but I edited the files in /usr/share and /usr/lib as well.

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smanuel (steven-d-manuel) said : 		#7

Thanks Corona, that solved my question.