[X4U] Re: Default application to open pdf on double click, and icon

[Tim Collier]

You do know that the latest version is Acrobat Reader 8, right?

Tim


On 6/27/08 11:37 PM, "stephen e. schwartz"  wrote an exciting message that
when I read it on 6/27/08 11:37 PM, I became so enthusiastic, I was forced
to take an extra Xanax 1 mg.

> After much trial and error I found an almost perfect solution to my
> problem, and in the process I understand system 10.4 a bit better than I
> did previously.
> 
> Evidently system 10.4 will not allow a classic app to be the default app to
> open a file type (at least under some set of circumstances; I am not sure I
> wholly understand its ground rules.)
> 
> But I found the following workaround: Select a pdf document, and in the
> file: get info window make the default app to open the document acrobat
> reader 7. And in the same window instruct it to do so for all files of this
> type in the dialog. The window allows this and does not revert (as it did
> when I tried to have acrobat 4 be the default).
> 
> This changes the double click default of all pdf's to acrobat 7. But if
> acrobat 4 is on (and reader 7 is not) then when one double clicks any pdf
> document, the application to open the document rolls over to acrobat 4 (in
> classic) as desired.
> 
> The icons did not immediately revert back to acrobat icons, but they did on
> a restart, and retained their file creation date. Whoopee!
> 
> I am reporting this on the odd chance that anyone else ever faces such a
> problem.
> 
> -steve
> 
> -----
> 
> 
>> 
>> Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:08:08 -0400
>> From: "stephen e. schwartz" <ses at bnl.gov>
>> Subject: [X4U] Default application to open pdf on double click, and
>> icon
>> To: x4u at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
>> Message-ID: <l0313030ac48468374265@[192.168.0.101]>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>> 
>> I prefer to open pdf documents in acrobat 4 in classic (I have the full
>> app; this allows me to underscore, make notes etc).
>> 
>> I used to have this as the default app to open files by double clicking.
>> This has worked fine for years.
>> 
>> Somehow something has gotten royally messed up. If I generate a document
>> and save to pdf using distiller via the print dialog, it saves it as a
>> colorsync utility document. Ditto for pdf attachments coming in on email.
>> Ditto pdf files that I save to disk using firefox.
>> 
>> Worse, many (but not all) of the multitude of pdfs on my hard drive have
>> had their icon changed to a generic pdf document icon (a couple of stacked
>> photos) and the default app changed to colorsync.
>> 
>> In principle I should select a .pdf document, do file info on it, change
>> the app to open it with using the pull down menu (this works, although it
>> changes the file date to now); get the dialog that asks if I want to do
>> this with all; confirm that I do. What happens is that the file that I just
>> told to open with acrobat 4 reverts to colorsync and no other files change.
>> 
>> Somehow colorsync has taken over commmand. This behavior persists even if
>> colorsync is off (which is hard for me to keep that way because I have a
>> habit of double clicking pdf files).
>> 
>> I removed colorsync put it in the trash. And my computer started making
>> illustrator CS2 the default app for pdfs.
>> 
>> So a bunch of questions.
>> 
>> 1. Any idea why I get nowhere by trying to get all my acrobat 4.0 documents
>> to open with acrobat 4.0?
>> 
>> 2. I would really like to do a global change of all .pdf documents to open
>> with acrobat 4.0 but would NOT like to change the file modified date. Any
>> idea how?
>> 
>> OS 10.4.11.
>> 
>> By the way in the pull down menu on the get info page I have 8 apps above
>> the line and 10 (including acrobat 4.0) below the line, if that matters.
>> 
>> And you will probably want to know what brought this around. the short
>> answer, I think, is that I used colorsync to read a pdf document, and
>> everything went downhill from there.
>> 
>> And one more clue: If I _do_ change the default app for a single document
>> to acrobat, the icon shows up as some sort of unrecognized hairy looking
>> blob; if I select that icon in the get info dialog page and delete it, I
>> get a nice clean looking acrobat icon. But this procedure does change the
>> file modify date.
>> 
>> I would welcome suggestions.
>> 
>> thanks
>> 
>> -steve
>> 
> 
> 
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--
Tim Collier
MacBook 2.2 gig 2 gig RAM
http://www.timcolliermiami.com/