firefox not using acroread

[Colin Law]

On 15 December 2012 15:17, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 15 December 2012 09:54:48 Colin Law did opine:
>
>> On 15 December 2012 03:08, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
>> > On Friday 14 December 2012 22:08:31 Gene Heskett did opine:
>> >
>> > Ping?
>> >
>> >> Greetings;
>> >>
>> >> 10.04.4 32 bit here.
>> >>
>> >> For some reason I fail to grok, firefox has started using something
>> >> that reminds me of ghostscript back when all it could use were its
>> >> own fonts. That was about the time of ghostscript 4.0 on the amiga
>> >> IIRC.
>> >>
>> >> This thing doesn't identify itself, cannot make useable printouts
>> >> thru the firefox print preview facility, destroys ugly fonts by
>> >> screwing with the kerning, and in general is a POS.
>> >>
>> >> How can I convince firefox to use acroread?  Or if the reader has too
>> >> many security flaws, can this one be switched to one that actually
>> >> works?
>>
>> I, for one, have little idea what question you are trying to ask.
>> What has acroread got to do with printing in Firefox?  Please explain
>> carefully the problem you are seeing.
>>
>> Colin
>
> Most, 90% but not all, .pdf file links, when clicked on, bring up some sort
> of a pdf renderer that is not acroread despite the claims of about:config.
> This utility is uglier by far in terms of font rendering than ghostscript
> was 20 years ago!  Its also slow, apparently rendering a 300 page document
> in memory before it will even let you advance to the next page, it has no
> print facility, so you must use firefox's print preview & print functions.
> When sent to my laser printer, it is somehow convinced the un-printable
> regions of the printer are about 2.5" wide for all 4 margins and summarily
> clips off any text on the right end of the line or the bottom of the page
> that would extend into this 2.5" wide margin.  To get a printout that is
> usable, I have had to set the print scale to somewhere in the 60% range,
> but then I need a low power microscope to read it.  I can save the file,
> open it with acroread and get what the file composer wanted to show.  And I
> can waste a tree and get that same well rendered image on paper.
>
> So, how do I get rid of this pdf renderer, and make it use a real one?
> Like acroread, or ghostscript, anything but this POS has got to be far more
> usable.  This thing, whatever its called, needs to be found guilty and shot
> at sunrise, if not before.

OK, you are talking about opening pdf files in firefox.  Nils'
suggestions should be good then.

Colin