In this tutorial, Luke shows you how to change your default PDF reader on your Mac computer. There are various programs that can be used to read PDFs and you don't have to decide on only one. Your Mac is probably pre-programmed to open up the 'Preview' application when you click on a PDF file, but if you'd prefer to use something else, such as.
How to Change the Default PDF Viewer on Mac from Apple Preview to Kdan PDF Reader Gina June 27, 2017 02:48; Updated; Right click the PDF file, and tap 'Get Info.' 'How can I set the default to open all PDF's at 100% zoom magnification?' With Acrobat Pro, run a Batch Process (Sequence)/Action to run the 'Open Options' sequence. This sequence permits setting the values for all items under the Initial View tab of PDFs' Document Properties.
PDF has greatly expanded the boundaries of digital documents that swell today, it brings us a much more innovative way to present our ideas. Therefore, people, especially office people use PDF very often. It is a commonsense understanding that we all need a PDF viewer to open and view a PDF file. There are so many options on a PDF reader, then how to change the default PDF viewer to our preferred one on mac?
Follow these instructions to set Adobe Acrobat Reader as the default application for opening PDF files. Step 1: Single click a PDF file you wish to open or any PDF file in general while holding the Control key. Then select GET INFO from the menu you've opened. In the Preview app on your Mac, open a PDF or image that you want to view. Choose Tools Show Inspector, then do any of the following: Get general file information: Click the General Info Inspector button. View keywords: Click the Keywords Inspector button. See Assign keywords to a PDF or image.
In effect, it is quite easy to change the default PDF viewer on mac, here we list 3 methods to make this, no matter you want to change default PDF viewer to Preview, Adobe or other PDF readers for Mac.
Method 1. Change Default PDF Viewer via Get Info Menu
To change default PDF viewer on mac with Get Info menu is the most universal way that Apple macOS support itself and other authorities are recommending. So, we will begin with this method to change your default PDF viewer to Preview, Adobe Acrobat or other PDF readers.
- Right click on a PDF file, then choose 'Get Info';
- Then go to 'Open with'. Now, the defaulted PDF viewer on my mac is Preview, you can click the drop-down menu to shift to another installed PDF viewer on your mac, like Adobe Acrobat Reader or others;
- Then click on the Change All>Continue to change the default viewer to your selected one. Open a PDF, you will find the default PDF viewer for your mac has been changed;
Method 2. Change Default PDF Viewer on Mac via 'Always Open With'
Another method to change default PDF viewer on mac is enabling the 'Always Open With' menu and choose your preferred viewer on mac.
- Right click on a PDF file, choose Open With>Other…
- Then go to Enable, choose Recommended Applications and select the PDF viewer you want to set as default from the app list. After that, check the box before 'Always Open With'; If you cannot find the PDF viewer your want to change as the defaulted one from the Recommended app list, go to Enable>All Applications, then choose your wanted PDF viewer, and check the box before 'Always Open With';
- Last, click on Open to change your default PDF viewer on mac.
Method 3. Change Default PDF Viewer when Installing a New PDF Viewer
To change default PDF viewer on mac with Get Info menu is the most universal way that Apple macOS support itself and other authorities are recommending. So, we will begin with this method to change your default PDF viewer to Preview, Adobe Acrobat or other PDF readers.
- Right click on a PDF file, then choose 'Get Info';
- Then go to 'Open with'. Now, the defaulted PDF viewer on my mac is Preview, you can click the drop-down menu to shift to another installed PDF viewer on your mac, like Adobe Acrobat Reader or others;
- Then click on the Change All>Continue to change the default viewer to your selected one. Open a PDF, you will find the default PDF viewer for your mac has been changed;
Method 2. Change Default PDF Viewer on Mac via 'Always Open With'
Another method to change default PDF viewer on mac is enabling the 'Always Open With' menu and choose your preferred viewer on mac.
- Right click on a PDF file, choose Open With>Other…
- Then go to Enable, choose Recommended Applications and select the PDF viewer you want to set as default from the app list. After that, check the box before 'Always Open With'; If you cannot find the PDF viewer your want to change as the defaulted one from the Recommended app list, go to Enable>All Applications, then choose your wanted PDF viewer, and check the box before 'Always Open With';
- Last, click on Open to change your default PDF viewer on mac.
Method 3. Change Default PDF Viewer when Installing a New PDF Viewer
The last, but not the least convenient way to change default PDF viewer on mac is doing this as the installation of a new PDF viewer starts.
The reason why you want to change the default PDF viewer on mac is mainly for that you have other PDF viewers installed or will be installed on your mac. You can easily do this when installing a new PDF reader, since a newly installed PDF viewer will allow you to change the default viewer.
Here we take PDFExpert as the example, since it is the most popular Mac PDF reader and editor to work on your PDF files, it is much likely that you will install a PDF tools as powerful as PDFExpert.
The Ultimate PDF Editor for Mac
PDF Expert Allows Users to:
- Edit PDF: edit text, image, link;
- Redact, annotate, protect, sign, crop, rotate, extract PDF;
- Insert/Add/Delete PDF pages, add/remove page numbers;
- Scan & OCR PDF files to recognize text from scanned PDF or image;
- Export PDF as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Text, Image;
- Export annotation summary;
- Create PDF from Word, Image, etc.;
- Competitive price: $49.99
- Go to PDFExpert website, download the installer;
- Run the installer and go to the Installation Wizard as following;
- Check the box before 'Set PDF Expert as default PDF reader';
- Then click 'Install' to change the default PDF viewer on your mac.
Conclusion
Isn't it very easy to change the default PDF viewer on your mac? You can try any one of these 3 methods. Or, if you have other solutions, please don't hesitate to share with us in the comments area.
This tip is for everyone out there that uses their Mac to view, edit and create PDFs. The default PDF viewer on a Mac is a built-in application called 'Preview'. Preview is great for just viewing PDFs, but as soon as you want to do anything beyond quickly viewing the PDF, Preview starts to fall short. I use a Mac at work and one of the forms that I fill out for travel requires me to use Adobe Reader in order to complete and submit the form. I absolutely MUST use Adobe Reader for this task, but unfortunately when you install Adobe Reader it makes it your default PDF application. This mean that anytime you open up a PDF document on your Mac it is going to use Adobe Reader to do it. Adobe Reader is extremely sluggish when reading a large PDF..it stutters when scrolling through the document. I spend a lot of time at work with PDFs so having a sluggish PDF application is not acceptable. How did I fix this?
I use an app called PDFpen 6 on the Mac for most of my work with PDFs. In fact, I like this application so much that last year when Smile was running a sale on their applications I went ahead and bought PDFpen Pro 6 (check out their website for the differences between the standard version and the Pro version). Just the other day I used one of the 'Pro' feature from PDFpen Pro 6 to save me a bunch of time. Our Home Owner's Association (HOA) needed to update a PDF form and we only had the form in PDF. PDFpen Pro 6 has a tool that takes an existing PDF and in just a few seconds converts the PDF over to a Microsoft Word document. I then made the modifications in Microsoft Word and converted back to PDF and I was done. Without this application I would have needed to start over and re-create the form by hand. The other thing I really like about the PDFpen line of applications is that they have iOS versions of the app:
How To Change Default Pdf Viewer In Mac
The PDFpen applications will sync all of your PDF documents in iCloud so they are available on all of your devices and the PDFpen Scan+ application for iOS allows you to take a picture of something and very quickly turn it into a PDF..right from your iOS device, no computer needed! PDFpen Scan+ even does OCR (Optical Character Recognition), which if you are into going 'paperless' is a very important thing. For more information about how I use these apps both at work and at home read my post on going paperless.
So here is how you change the Mac default PDF application from 'Preview' to something else:
- Use the Finder application on your Mac and find a PDF document
- Press the 'control' key on your keyboard and click on the PDF document
- A window will pop up. Select 'Get Info'
- Within the 'Get Info' window there is field called 'Open with'. Choose the PDF application you wish to use as your default PDF app from that list.
- After you have selected the PDF app from the dropdown list now press the 'Change All' button directly under the dropdown list. This will make all PDF documents on your Mac open with the application you just chose instead of Preview (the built-in default Mac PDF application).
How to shrink file size mac. One last thing. Like I said earlier, there is one instance at work when I absolutely MUST use Adobe Reader to open and edit a PDF. For that one case since I have setup my Mac at work to use PDFpen Pro 6 for all my PDFs I must do something special to open a PDF in another application. Here is how to do this:
Pdf Viewer On Mac
- Use the Finder application on your Mac and find the PDF document that you want to open in a PDF application other than your default application
- Press the 'control' key on your keyboard and click on the PDF document
- Select the 'Open With' option and it will present you with a list of other PDF applications installed on your Mac.
- Select the other PDF applicaiton you want to use to open the PDF (in my case it is Adobe Reader)
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So that is how I get around using the very sluggish Adobe Reader application at work (except for when I absolutely must use it). Hope this is helpuful..
