Google Chrome has a built-in PDF viewer that is designed for convenience. When you click a link for a PDF menu or a tax form, Chrome automatically opens the document in a new browser tab instead of downloading the file to your hard drive.
While this is great for quickly reading a document, it is incredibly frustrating if you actually need to edit the file, sign a contract, or fill out a complex interactive form. Chrome’s basic PDF viewer cannot handle advanced editing, meaning you constantly have to click the “Download” button in the top right corner of the tab just to get the file into Adobe Acrobat.
If you prefer to use a dedicated PDF editor, you can completely disable Chrome’s built-in viewer.
How to Force Chrome to Download PDFs
By changing this one setting, Chrome will immediately download every PDF file directly to your Downloads folder the moment you click the link, completely bypassing the browser tab preview.
- Open Google Chrome.
- Click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the window.
- Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- On the left-hand sidebar, click on Privacy and security.
- In the middle of the screen, click on Site settings.
- Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and click on Additional content settings to expand the hidden menu.
- Click on PDF documents.
- You will see a setting labeled “Default behavior”. Select the bubble next to Download PDFs.
Now, whenever you click a PDF link, Chrome will treat it exactly like a standard file download (like a .zip or .exe file). You can then open the file locally on your computer using Adobe Acrobat, Apple Preview, or any other professional PDF software you prefer.
Setting Your Default PDF App in Windows
After you force Chrome to download the files, you might find that double-clicking the downloaded file in Windows just forces it to open back up in Google Chrome anyway! Microsoft Edge and Chrome aggressively try to be your default PDF reader.
To fix this in Windows, right-click any PDF file on your computer, select Open with, and click Choose another app. Select Adobe Acrobat (or your preferred software), check the box that says “Always use this app to open .pdf files”, and click OK. Now your files will always open in the correct software.