[pdftex] pdf file not displaying properly in browser

[Mark A. Wicks]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001 rhowlett at mail.usyd.edu.au wrote:

> > Robert Howlett <rhowlett at mail.usyd.edu.au> writes:
> > 
> > ...
> > > I am puzzled by a minor problem that I am having now that I have not
> > > had before, at least for several years. The pdf files I create using

> I now believe that the phenomenon is this: when I first click
> on the link to the pdf file, the data is transmitted OK and the
> acrobat reader plug-in starts but the page remains blank. If
> I now click the browser's "back" button and then the "forward"
> button then the pdf file comes up OK on the screen. I usually
> use Netscape but on one occasion IE did something similar.
> 
> The strange thing is that I've been making and posting these
> pdf files for years and never had this particular behaviour
> before (as far as I can remember). All that has changed is the
> version of pdftex and the version of the browser.

   That behavior sounds like well-known bug that occured with certain
combinations of Netscape and the Acrobat reader plug-in.  I don't recall
IE being affected.  I thought it had been fixed and I haven't seen it in a
while.  If it's the same problem, the workaround is to load the document
into Acrobat (the full-product, not the reader) and select the "optimize"
option.  New versions of GS have a stand-alone optimizer.