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MElkinsKG's avatar
MElkinsKG
Brass Contributor
May 17, 2022

Opening a PDF in Edge returns error. Needs Adobe Reader 8 or greater.

I have a customer (large City) that has received a batch of PDFs from another gov agency.  When they try to open the document from MS Teams or Edge, they get the following:

"The document you are trying to load requires Adobe Reader 8 or higher." 

The document loads fine in Adobe, but not in Edge/Teams/SharePoint.  The gov agency states that it no longer supports earlier versions of Adobe Reader.  Any options to keep the customer satisfied?

  • DK1's avatar
    DK1
    Brass Contributor

    MElkinsKG I assume you're referring to this screen?

     

    I'm not sure if Microsoft would call this by-design, but that's essentially what it is. This message usually means that the form was created using Adobe Livecycle Designer or Adobe Experience Manager and implements certain features that are not part of the core PDF spec (Google XFA forms for more details).

     

    The solution here is to use Adobe Reader to open the file. Note that even if they don't want to pay for Acrobat, they can still download Adobe Reader for free from the Adobe website. I'm not entirely sure what you or your customer mean by "it no longer supports earlier versions of Adobe Reader," but the most recent version of Adobe Reader should be able to open these files.

  • DK1 is correct, those PDFs are using non-standard features that we haven't implemented in our PDF reader. We are looking into it though!
    • MikeGuild's avatar
      MikeGuild
      Copper Contributor
      Good morning,
      These nonstandard features still seem to be an issue in Edge. Is this feature integration in process since many US government websites still utilize it?
  • Reza_Ameri's avatar
    Reza_Ameri
    Silver Contributor
    In this case, I advise you to report it using the feedback option in Microsoft Edge.
    Take a look at:
    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftedge/forum/all/how-to-report-a-feedbackbug-to-microsoft-edges/20cc8eb5-11bb-43b6-95d1-e004d41ef876
    Since this is a government document, I advise you to create a dummy document without any data and see if you are able to reproduce this issue. If yes, submit the PDF you created so the Microsoft Edge team could reproduce the issue.

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