How to Open PDF file Directly in Acrobat Reader in Chrome

If you search and then open a pdf page in the Google Chrome browser, by default it opens in the browser itself. In case you need to save this file you have to download it on your system by clicking on the download sign from the top buttons. This becomes a two-step process and to save your precious time, you can directly save it to the system by following these simple tweaks.

Steps to Save and open a PDF file in Acrobat Reader

Option-1 Chrome Settings

Open Chrome browser, go to the top menu, and click on the button (three dots) saying Customize and Control Google Chrome. From a list in the drop-down menu, click on settings. In the settings webpage, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Advanced.

Now under the Privacy and Security sub-heading, navigate to Content settings>PDF settings and open its settings. Turn-On the button in front of “Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome”.

This setting when done, will directly ask you for the save location on opening the PDF file in Chrome.

Option-2 Install Acrobat Extension

This is another option that will allow you to open the pdf files directly in Acrobat reader rather than in the Chrome browser. Open Chrome Web Store. Type the keyword “Adobe acrobat” in the search bar and hit enter. Now in the list of adobe extensions, click on Add to Chrome in front of the Adobe Acrobat extension.

After installation, an Adobe icon will start appearing on the top right menu of Google Chrome. Now if you try to open the PDF file in the search results in chrome, you will get a pop-up screen to open the file in Acrobat reader as shown in the image below. If you click on the open in Acrobat option, this extension will automatically first download and then open the PDF page in your default PDF reader.

You can also convert any webpage to PDF with this extension. To remove or disable this extension, go to the browser menu (three dots), and navigate to More tools>extensions. You can now either disable it by de-selecting the radio button or delete it by clicking on the dustbin icon.

Note: If you use both the above options, chrome will work as per the first option and automatically asks you the path for saving the PDF file thus overriding the second(extension) option.