U.S. Census Bureau

Viewing Adobe Acrobat PDF documents on-line


Some users have reported problems viewing certain PDF files on-line. These documents are frequently edited in the latest PDF format. The solution for sucessfully viewing these documents on-line involves installing the latest version of the Adobe Reader after the versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape specified in the Adobe Reader system requirements have been installed.

Additionally, you can also try viewing these documents off-line with the version of the Adobe Reader currently installed by downloading a copy of the document (by right-clicking on the PDF link) and then opening it with a desktop version of the Adobe Reader.

Documents created and/or edited in Acrobat 6.0, for example, are built in PDF v1.5. This version of the PDF "language" contains the features found in Acrobat 6. Acrobat versions are backwards compliant to a degree; the basic document can be processed and opened in previous desktop versions, but the latest features are inaccessible. The real problem is opening the document from within Internet Explorer or Netscape with older versions of Acrobat.

Acrobat 5, for example, was built to work with IE 5.0 and Netscape 4.5 to 4.77 and 6.0 while Acrobat 6 was built to work with IE 5.01, 5.5, 6.0 or 6.1. Attempting to use an earlier version of Acrobat with an HTML browser it is not compatible with will result in an error similar to the following:

Downloading the document and opening it with an earlier desktop version of the Acrobat Reader will allow the user to view the document, just not the latest features. The user should see the following reminder to upgrade, as the page is loading, if they haven't checked the "Do not show this message again" checkbox.


Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Administrative and Customer Services Division, Electronic Products Development Branch
Last Revised: May 02, 2005 at 02:36:30 PM