Change the Default PDF Viewer in Chrome

There are a few software conflicts that can exist with PDF software. The PDFs are not populated by default because Adobe implemented a new security feature to prevent certain PDF properties from displaying, as they could contain malicious content.

This article will show you how to stop the Google Chrome web browser from automatically opening PDF documents.

Instructions

1. Open the Google Chrome browser
   
2. Click the More menu (three vertical dots icon) next to the user icon
3. Select the Settings option
   
4. Select the Privacy and Security option in the left-hand navigation menu
   
5. Click the Site Settings option
   
6. Scroll down to the Content section and click the Additional content settings dropdown
   
7. Click the PDF documents dropdown
   
8. Click the Download PDFs radio button
   
9. PDFs will now be downloaded instead of automatically opening in the Google Chrome browser

Article Glossary

The terms located in this section are listed alphabetically.

• PDF: Portable Document Format