Tbird attempts to open PDFs with Powerpoint regardless of option setting
Tbird 52.3 on Win 7. PDF in attachments. Tbird attempts to open it with MS PowerPoint. So I change the Tools / Options / Attachments setting -- which was set to Acrobat -- to Always Ask. No change. I stop and restart Tbird -- no change. I delete the PDF entry entirely -- no change. I stop and restart Tbird -- no change. Right-clicking the PDF only gives me "Open" and "Save As" as options. There is no "Open With" that I could use to force a dialog box, potentially with an option to "Always do this ..." option box.
Am I missing something?
Chosen solution
Outside of T-bird, PDF opened in Acrobat Reader, just as desired.
SOLVED. (but only for the brave)
I found the following lines in mimeTypes.rdf: (in \Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<profile> )
<RDF:Description
RDF:about="urn:mimetype:externalApplication:text/plain; charset=utf-8"
NC:prettyName="POWERPNT.EXE"
NC:path="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\POWERPNT.EXE" />
Removing these lines from the file fixed the problem. I have no idea why or how plain text files became associated with powerpoint. I also have no idea why or how PDFs came to be viewed as plain text files, but presumably this is because I deleted the PDF association entirely, so if I had looked at (known to look at) mimeTypes.rdf before I had done this, I probably would have found a line similar to the above specifying that PDFs be opened with PowerPoint.
Note that there were/are other lines in mimeTypes referring to MSOffice programs which operate correctly and have rather differently worded parameters:
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:application/msword" ... </pre>Read this answer in context 👍 0and
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:handler:application/msword" ... </pre>and
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" ... </pre>
So now my mimeTypes.rdf has no specific association for PDF files and they open in Acrobat Reader though some magic default procedure.It still bothers me that I don't have access to an "Open With ..." option when right-clicking the attachment, and also that there is no explicit "Add ..." option to create a file association _de novo_.
Finally, in some cases it's actually useful to have 2 file associations easily available for a given file type. For example, a .jpeg is most easily viewed (on Windows) in Preview, because this applet is quick and small. But if I want to edit that image, I would use, in my case, Corel Photo-Paint. But this is probably asking for a lot, since no OS to my knowledge splits such functionality.
All Replies (2)
Can you confirm that if you double click a pdf, outside of Thunderbird, it opens as you'd expect, in your preferred pdf reader?
Chosen Solution
Outside of T-bird, PDF opened in Acrobat Reader, just as desired.
SOLVED. (but only for the brave)
I found the following lines in mimeTypes.rdf: (in \Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<profile> )
<RDF:Description
RDF:about="urn:mimetype:externalApplication:text/plain; charset=utf-8"
NC:prettyName="POWERPNT.EXE"
NC:path="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\POWERPNT.EXE" />
Removing these lines from the file fixed the problem. I have no idea why or how plain text files became associated with powerpoint. I also have no idea why or how PDFs came to be viewed as plain text files, but presumably this is because I deleted the PDF association entirely, so if I had looked at (known to look at) mimeTypes.rdf before I had done this, I probably would have found a line similar to the above specifying that PDFs be opened with PowerPoint.
Note that there were/are other lines in mimeTypes referring to MSOffice programs which operate correctly and have rather differently worded parameters:
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:application/msword" ... </pre>and
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:handler:application/msword" ... </pre>and
<RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" ... </pre>
So now my mimeTypes.rdf has no specific association for PDF files and they open in Acrobat Reader though some magic default procedure.It still bothers me that I don't have access to an "Open With ..." option when right-clicking the attachment, and also that there is no explicit "Add ..." option to create a file association _de novo_.
Finally, in some cases it's actually useful to have 2 file associations easily available for a given file type. For example, a .jpeg is most easily viewed (on Windows) in Preview, because this applet is quick and small. But if I want to edit that image, I would use, in my case, Corel Photo-Paint. But this is probably asking for a lot, since no OS to my knowledge splits such functionality.