Child Item

When forcing a PDF to preview in a browser, it only shows the first page

Hi!
I'm running into an issue when previewing a pdf file in dropbox only shows the first page of the file (picture below for reference).

I use the "raw=1" extension at the end of the file, and so far that's worked well. Now out of the blue, it seems to only display the first page of the file.

Is there any way of fixing this, or possibly use a different file extension to use to preview the file? We send this file out to many potential clients so it needs to work easily on mobile and desktop browsers. I'd use "dl=1" except that really doesn't work at all on phones.

Thanks!
Joel

Preview file.jpg

Find more posts tagged with

Shared Links

Preview

Developer

Promoted

Accepted answers

joelandamber

Ok, seems I've finally solved this. For some reason, any time I tried to compress (use a 3rd party compressor) or checked the "Optimise for Fast Web View" in InDesign, it wouldn't load properly. I managed to keep the file sizes under 15mb, (most were in the 1-2mb range) without compression and now they all load properly. So it seems there's something with compressing or optimizing for web view that Chrome didn't like, but at least they all work now!

All comments

Jay

Hi @joelandamber, thanks for joining the Community!

We’re not experiencing this issue here when testing with a multipage PDF.

Could you try switching browsers to see if this helps? Otherwise, use incognito/private browsing mode without any extensions running, clearing your cache and even resetting your browser entirely.

Let me know how it goes!

joelandamber

Hi Jay, thanks for the quick reply!
It does seem to work in IE, but even after clearing the cache and trying incognito mode in Chrome, I still had the same issue. I tried a bunch of different files (we have a lot), and had the same problem with all of them.

Jay

Most likely there is an issue loading the rest of the pages in Chrome, as it worked fine in another browser.

In your original image the other pages are shown as the dot shadows, which would indicate this.

Try disabling the extensions and plugins in Chrome to see if any of them are affecting the page loading.

joelandamber

Ok, that was it!! I turned off the Google Docs Offline extension and it loaded. Turned it on and it didn't load, turned it off and it did load. So there seems to be something amiss with that extension I guess. Either way it looks like this is solved, thank you!

Jay

Glad to hear that you found the extension which caused this issue, @joelandamber!

Enjoy your weekend!

joelandamber

Hi again... I'm back. And I'm having the same issue again! I disabled all the extensions (and even removed the Google Drive Offline extension that I thought was the issue), and the pdf files still aren't loading. So all extensions are off, cleared the cache, tried incognito mode, and still nothing but those gray dots below the first page. Still works in IE though.

Any other ideas?

Edit: when I do clear the cache and try it again, for a split second the scroll bar on the right is very short, making it look as though it's loaded the whole document (it's a long doc), but then snaps to a longer scroll bar since only 1 page ends up displaying. So it's almost as though the whole document loads, but then it only displays the one page.

HugoHugoHugo

I experienced the same issue (but with another website). After investigation, it appears that this has something to do with SameSite cookies.

You can fix it by setting this flag to Disabled then restart Chrome:

chrome://flags/#same-site-by-default-cookies

Update: Found an issue in the Chromium bug tracker related to this problem:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=961617

joelandamber

Thanks for the insight, but unfortunately that workaround didn't help, it still only loaded the first page.

This apparently does affect other users, so whenever I send out these .pdf documents to clients, they also don't load for them.

@Jay any other thoughts or ideas? Really need to get this solved soon!

Walter

Hi @joelandamber; sorry to hear you're still having issues with this and I'll be glad to have a further look into this for you.

To do so, can you clarify if you're running into this issue with all of your shared links, some or just one?

Also, what browsers are your collaborators using when bumping into this issue with your PDF files not rendering properly as a whole?

By the way, does this occur for all of your PDF files or a specific one?

Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there.

joelandamber

Hi @Walter ! Thanks so much for replying.

So far this issue seems to only be with Chrome. IE seems to open them fine.

We have a lot of .pdf files (we're wedding photographers and have created a lot of guides for our couples), so I haven't checked all of them. But it seems all the newer created pdf files have this issue, as well as one or two older ones. Yet some seem to work fine, especially ones that we've created awhile ago. Can't seem to find much of a rhyme or reason beyond that.

Could it be that somehow I changed a .pdf setting when exporting from InDesign that's causing some of this? No idea where to start looking for that though.

Walter

Thanks for your swift response Joe; I appreciate it.

Since this works fine on IE, it seems like your Chrome browser is acting up; what version are you running exactly? Can you see if there's an update available?

On your last query, I'd check if the files in question are Dynamic PDF documents (including bookmarks, hyperlinks etc.) as there might be a setting within Adobe's InDesign program that's interefering and causing this issue when previewing your PDF files on Chrome.

Keep us posted anyhow @joelandamber!

joelandamber

Chrome appears to be up to date, running version 80.0.3987.132 (Official Build) (64-bit).

Based on above recommendations, I disabled all the extensions and got it to work for a couple of days, then it stopped working again. I've tried disabling all extensions, clearing browser, etc again and so far that hasn't helped.

There's a chance I exported using a Dynamic PDF, unfortunately I can't open the InDesign files on this computer... will have to wait until later this week to try a different file type... sorry!

joelandamber

Jay

Thanks for keeping us posted, @joelandamber!

It’s good to know that you were able to narrow down the cause for this issue on Chrome.

anase

Hello,

I'm having this very same problem with all my pdfs. Example here [6.7 MB]: [Removed as per Community Guidelines]

I want the preview to be displayed directly with the browser viewer (therefore the raw=1). This link above works just fine in other browsers (e.g., Microsoft Edge and Firefox) but in Google Chrome it does only load the first page. I've tried in several computers with Chrome updated to the last version, and the same happens in all of them. The pdfs are not compressed, they are directly compiled with Latex, and no further processing after. Any idea what might be going on?

Thanks a lot!

joelandamber

Yep, sounds like the same error I had. I found it was something in the way the .pdf was compressed. Try with different export options in whatever program you use. For example, try exporting for print and exporting for web and see if that helps. Try to avoid any compression (which I know you said you didn't use... but check into any sort of export settings). Basically play with various settings in your export menu and see if it fixes it. You could also try exporting it as a different file type (perhaps a .doc) and then convert that to .pdf.

kandrew1

I am having the same problem. My PDF files are created via InDesign as well.

I have an online program loaded to my website. People click the link to view the PDF files (using =raw1 so it displays on screen). Any PDF file over 1.1MB only displays the first page. The same problem arises if I try emailing them the filepath directly.

I can't ask schools across the country to change browsers just to view my files!!

Does anyone have a manageable solution for this other than chaning browsers?

It started in Febuary this year. I worked out if I downsided the files to below 1MB it was ok (but that meant reducing the quality of my images).

Do I need store all my course content somewhere else??

Jay

Hi @kandrew1, did you try the steps regarding the 'Optimise for Fast web view' as stated by @joelandamber above?

kandrew1

Hi Jay. Still investigating thanks.