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TomKari
Onyx | Level 15

Hi, all

 

In EG 6.1, when I use EG to create PDF results and try to automatically open them, I receive the message:

 

Unable to open the external viewer. there is no application associated with the '.pdf' file type.

 

Any suggestions for how to fix this problem?

 

Thanks,

  Tom

12 REPLIES 12
Reeza
Super User

Have you tried changing the preferences to use internal viewer? Also, if you write it to your drive can you open it or is it an EG specific issue?

RW9
Diamond | Level 26 RW9
Diamond | Level 26

Well, not an EG user so if its that I can't help.  But from the text of the error, it sounds like one of the following:

- No reader is installed, check you have Adobe or one of the other PDF readers, and that the app is available to SAS (i.e. we have our SAS on a network, so Adobe needs to be installed on the server as well.

- The reader is not associated with the file types.  You can do this simply by going to a PDF where the reader is installed, right clicking on the file and select Open With...Choose Default Program, then find your reader file either in the given list of programs, or locate the installed program folder and the exe therefrom.  An example (take note of the checkbox to the lower end, if this is checked that file extension gets associated with the application):

Capture.PNG

JuanS_OCS
Amethyst | Level 16

Hi, 

 

please see the attrached EG_PDFviewer.PNG file.

 

What @RW9 mentioned, is right, that will select your default PDF viewer. But in case that windows cannot handle that property correctly, you can set it by yourself in Tools-->Results-->Viewer. If you select the viewer, next time it should work just fine 🙂

 

 

 


EG_PDFviewer.PNG
TomKari
Onyx | Level 15

Thank you all, this has been a great help so far.

 

The problem is starting to be narrowed down. I'm using Windows 8.1, which installs something call "Windows Reader" to open PDF files. EG doesn't seem to know how to open it.

 

Outside of EG, double clicking a PDF opens it in "Windows Reader" just fine. The problem is, this program is one of the wonderful Windows Apps, and they are swaddled in security. So far, I can't figure out what to enter in the "Preferred Viewer" box in EG.

 

If nobody has an answer to this in the next couple of days, I'll throw it over the wall to Tech Support and let you know what they say.

 

Thanks,

  Tom

JuanS_OCS
Amethyst | Level 16

Try first if you can find something like: c:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Reader.....

 

If you can find the .exe. that is the one to link in the Viewer options.

RW9
Diamond | Level 26 RW9
Diamond | Level 26

Out of interest, is there a reason you don't have PDF Reader at least installed?  It is free.  Would be suprised if you don't have it.  Personally I have really gone off Windows products over the last few years, my PDF browser at home fills the screen, its dreadful.  Chat to your IT, they may have it as a request app.

TomKari
Onyx | Level 15

So, a bunch of digging around and trying things resulted in no success trying to get EG to use the Windows "Reader" to open PDFs from EG.

 

It turned out that believe it or not I didn't have the Adobe reader installed on my computer (I've actually been quite happy with the Windows reader for three years!). However, as I need this functionality now, I broke down and installed it. Immediately, EG picked it up and started using it.

 

I'm not going to mark this "solved" because I'd still like to know how to fire up the Windows reader from EG, but I'm not going to sweat it.

 

JuanS_OCS
Amethyst | Level 16

With this, shall we understand that you tried to call the windows reader from its own path and it didn't worked out?

RW9
Diamond | Level 26 RW9
Diamond | Level 26

As @JuanS_OCS has asked, did not the exe work directly.  To be honest I hadn't even been aware that MS had included a reader with their OS.  If it is anything like the rest of their products since roughly Gates leaving then I am not suprised it doesn't work.  I would suggest always to use either the Adobe reader, or by preference one of the free open source varieties - Foxit or SumatraPDF.  However if your building PDFs a lot, you can't really knock the full Adobe package - although I really dislike this new container PDF type.

TomKari
Onyx | Level 15

Thanks for the comments!

 

The problem is that the Windows reader is in a new "WindowsApps" (at least new to me) directory structure under "Program Files", and it seems to be swathed in security, such that I can't even figure out what the .exe is, or where it is.

 

As I said, this may be solvable, but I hit my limit for "screw it, I'll use the workaround".

 

With regards to the Windows reader, I didn't find it that bad...after all, I've been using it for the last three years, and didn't even notice that Adobe Reader wasn't on my machine!

 

Mercifully, I don't have to create PDFs in the ordinary course of events, just consume them. Thank heavens!

 

Thanks again,

  Tom

 

 

JuanS_OCS
Amethyst | Level 16

Indeed, that is one of the many reasons because I am yet fighting with all my will against to move to Windows 10 for now 🙂

I can understand the frustration and it is not very worthy the time if the workaround is possible.

 

If I would be on your shoes, I would leave to your system admins the task to to figure out the filesystem path to the executable of the windows reader, if it is available. When they get it, you can just add it on the viewer options. 

 

RW9
Diamond | Level 26 RW9
Diamond | Level 26

Ah, Windows 10 and Windows Store apps.  Yes, there is your problem.  As I mention above, almost all the development and decisions since (and including) Windows Vista have been bad ones in my opinion.  At home I am still using Win8 as my Win7 licence expired, but I dual boot to Linux, am hoping that will do everything and I will move away from Windows almost completely.  Windows App store is another path to failure, they already have tried something like that for games, Games for Windows Live which is now totally dead.  If you can, remain on Win7 until the last minute, what with all the tracking, bugs, and bad decisions I can't see Win10 being as useful as 7 - yes, I know there has been a lot of take up on it, however could that be beacuse they are pushing it for free and ramming it down previous win version users throats at every opportunity, am thinking so.

 

Anyhows, went a wandering there, glad its sorted! 

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