[OS X TeX] Prevent Acrobat Reader From Opening Files?

Bruno Voisin bvoisin at mac.com
Sat Oct 29 01:47:55 CEST 2005


Le 28 oct. 05 à 19:25, Herbert Schulz a écrit :

> Adobe seems to be one of those companies that thinks it knows  
> better than you. After unchecking the option you should also remove  
> the Adobe Reader Plugin (don't know the exact name any more - it  
> should be pretty obvious) located in /Library/Internet Plug-ins/.  
> The damn thing also seems to put a framework INSIDE Safari.app but  
> that seems to be harmless once you get rid of the plugin.

As some have noticed, deleting the plugin is not enough. Once in a  
while, Adobe Reader will warn you than some elements are missing and  
should be installed for your system to work properly; at this step,  
you should uncheck all checkboxes such that nothing is installed, and  
check (if present) the option to not see this reminder again.

Another way to provoke this step is, in Adobe Reader, to go to Help >  
Detect and Repair.

However, whatever you chose at this step, next time Adobe Reader is  
updated, the plugin will be reinstalled and you'll be offered no  
opportunity to prevent it from being installed.

With Adobe Acrobat (the non-free version), the situation is even  
worse: not only the PDF viewer plugin will be installed, but also a  
PDF Maker will be installed in MS Office, adding a supplementary  
toolbar in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, eating up screen estate for no  
good reason; in addition, an Adobe PDF printer is added to the  
printer list for all applications.

I don't know how exactly to suppress this printer. As to the  
modifications to MS Office, you need to erase PDFMakerLib (IIRC) in / 
Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/, then go to /Applications/ 
Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Startup/ and erase the various macro  
files inside the subfolders Word, Excel and PowerPoint of this  
folder. Then you'll have, again, to use Detect and Repair to make  
sure these components are not reinstalled afterwards.

As to the installation of Frameworks inside Safari.app, I'll refrain  
from commenting further.

Another thing: if you're tired of the ads being displayed on the  
right of the Adobe Reader toolbar, you should go to Preferences >  
Startup and uncheck "Show Messages and automatically update". This  
option is carefully hidden, such that the display of ads is linked  
with automatic update of the application. Again, it's probably better  
not to comment any further.

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