Stop PDFs from displaying inside Google Chrome

You can disable the Adobe plugin in Chrome, which will force Chrome to download the PDF.

It's under Settings > Privacy and security > Site Settings > PDF documents. Or enter chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments in your browser address bar to go straight there.


browse to chrome://plugins and disable Chrome PDF Viewer


Are you using Adobe Acrobat/Adobe Reader to display the PDFs? If so, it is probably Abode's behavior you need to modify.

Here are the steps I had to take:

  1. Open Adobe Reader
  2. Edit menu, Preferences
  3. Select Internet from the Categories list
  4. Uncheck Display PDF in browser
  5. Press OK

If you are using another application to view PDFs the steps are likely similar.

Re: Update

By any chance do you have both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat installed? You may have to repeat the above steps in the other application.

Chrome is a little weird in that its default behavior is to download everything and make you open it yourself. When you click a PDF link do you see the filename in the "download bar" along the bottom of the window? If so, try right-clicking on it and un-check "Always open files of this type" if it is checked.