I share my database. The server is accessed from Windows Computers using Internet Explorer. When a user selects a PDF document, the preview window displays a message that the document is a PDF file and the user is instructed to “Please Use Safari”. What causes this? What can I do to correct it? Windows users of my server must be able to preview PDF files otherwise Devonthink may be a no go for me.
The problem is not with DEVONthink, but with the ability of Windows Explorer to display various filetypes. Your Windows users could still download the PDFs and view them with a PDF viewer.
Bill is correct. This is a lack on Internet Explorer’s part (as is easily confirmed by using Firefox or Chrome).
Are there any plug-ins available for Windows Internet Explorer that would allow it to display the PDF in the preview window? What is special about the PDFs store in Devonthink that the Acrobat plug-in cannot handle? What attributes do I need to look for in an Internet Explorer plug-in?
The ability to browse thru a series of file entries, looking at the preview to identify when the correct document is found, is very important to the folks I’m sharing my database with.
The issue is with Internet Explorer, not with DEVONthink or the PDF files themselves.
If you do an Internet search for the phrase Internet Explorer and PDF, you will discover that this is a common problem with Internet Explorer. You will also probably find tips about how to configure Internet Explorer to view PDFs – but Safari would work better.
IMHO Internet Explorer has become an outdated app.
Again, I concur with Bill on IE. I run both Firefox and Chrome on my PC (with a preference toward Chrome) and Web Sharing works perfectly well.