PDF files won't open in works

Ron Victoria · Post by **Ron Victoria** » 16 Feb 2011 4:43 pm

I saved some Turbotax files. When I tried to open them it went to Works and wouldn't open. I was able to open them thru Adobe. I recall having a purchased sports ticket that wouldn't open either. Is there a glitch in the Works program?

thanks, Ron

Chris Dorch · Post by **Chris Dorch** » 16 Feb 2011 5:14 pm

Naw... Works doesn't open PDFs.. the file association is wrong..

Since you are using Works, I assume you are using Windows... Try this.. find a PDF, right click on it and choose Open With.. When the dialog box pops up, look for Adobe Acrobat, highlight it but before you click okay, check the box that says something like "Always open this file type with this program." If you let me know your OS version, I can probably write up better instructions...

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 16 Feb 2011 6:27 pm

PDFs are created with Acrobat, but are read in Adobe Reader. Open Office also reads PDF files, as does Foxit Reader.

MS Works is an old program. You must have a very old PC to have Works installed.

Ron Victoria · Post by **Ron Victoria** » 16 Feb 2011 6:50 pm

It's a new PC. That's the office program it came with. I installed MS Word.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 16 Feb 2011 8:12 pm

Ron Victoria wrote:It's a new PC. That's the office program it came with. I installed MS Word.

Do you mean that OpenOffice came with the new PC? If so, it already has a PDF encoder/reader built into it.

Microsoft Works is part of the distant past. It produces a lot of files that only it can read. The rest are in proprietary Microsoft formats.

The last stable version, version 9, was released in 2007. Microsoft even offered a free version, supported by advertising, in 2008. That version was actually compatible with Windows Vista. However, the program interface still resembles Windows 95, with its old style icons and 1990s appearance.

Microsoft has finally discontinued MS Works and has placed all of its eggs in the MS Office suite and online Office Live apps in the cloud.

I would advise you to begin moving your documents and spreadsheets to newer applications and modern formats.

Chris Dorch · Post by **Chris Dorch** » 17 Feb 2011 6:15 am

Works is not part of the distant past.. It comes installed on many OEM boxes... It's useless, but not dead...

Ron Victoria · Post by **Ron Victoria** » 17 Feb 2011 6:47 am

Thanks Chris. I made that change and now they all open immediately.

ron

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 17 Feb 2011 7:06 am

Ron Victoria wrote:Thanks Chris. I made that change and now they all open immediately.

ron

Si. But es no longer updato

Ron Victoria · Post by **Ron Victoria** » 17 Feb 2011 8:16 am

Why wouldn't a new Turbotax program save the files in word?

Chris Dorch · Post by **Chris Dorch** » 17 Feb 2011 9:52 am

Ron Victoria wrote:Why wouldn't a new Turbotax program save the files in word?

Because Word is not free, tho a viewer is... Furthermore, PDF are generally cannot be edited without a full version of Acrobat. But with Word, anyone can edit them.

That doesn't mean you cannot convert a PDF to a word document. You can.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 17 Feb 2011 3:28 pm

Ron Victoria wrote:Why wouldn't a new Turbotax program save the files in word?

TurboTax is trying to be OS agnostic in its saving options. Microsoft Office is definitely not agnostic. The Portable Document Format (PDF) is. A person can install Adobe Reader, or OpenOffice onto their Linux, Solaris, Unix, Mac, or whatever operating system and open and print a PDF file, as it was saved and sealed. Even people with Netbooks and few programs aside from a Google Chrome browser can read PDF files if they install Adobe Reader, or the Reader plug-in.

I have a Ubuntu Linux computer that does not have open office, but does have Adobe Reader installed. I can open, read, save and print their contents. I could not do that if those files were saved and sent as Microsoft documents of any kind.