Re: .pdf files associated with Notepad

[Max Wyss <prodok -at- PRODOK -dot- CH>]

Elise,

the original reason for that behaviour is MS-DOS'/Windows' wonderful
concept of relying on the file suffix to determine what kind of file it is
supposed to be. Even as this is already very flawed, it gets worse because
there is no place where the software developer can register those suffixes.
The other operating systems I know of have more reliable mechanism to
determine the kind of the file (they usually have a "magic number" in the
file header.

I believe to remember reading that there is at least one other kind of file
in the Windows operating system environment which does use the .pdf suffix.
It is a plain text file which is best edited in Notepad. When that kind of
file has been opened earlier than a PDF file in the history of that
particular machine, the software to open that other kind of file gets
assigned to the .pdf suffix. ... and you have to do your fix the system
routine.

Hope, this can help.

Max Wyss
PRODOK Engineering
Technical documentation and translations, Electronic Publishing
CH-8906 Bonstetten, Switzerland

Fax:  +41 1 700 20 37
e-mail:  mailto:prodok -at- prodok -dot- ch
WWW:  http://www.prodok.ch/prodok


Bridging the Knowledge Gap


______________________



>We deliver our documentation in Adobe Acrobat, and periodically folks
>report that they "tried to open a document and it looked like garbage."
>When I investigate, it always turns out that files with the .pdf
>extension have somehow become associated with Notepad rather than the
>Acrobat Reader.  I know how to fix the file association problem--in
>fact, I've become an expert--but I don't know what is causing the
>problem to occur so frequently, or how to prevent it.  Any ideas?
>
>Elise Kaplan


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