Question: opening Adobe Acrobat Reader inside IE

[welshTerrier2]

i've built a website that uses Crystal Reports to display formatted data from a database. the problem with the Crystal Reports engine that comes with .Net (the development tool I used) is that it doesn't have any printing capabilities other than the browser's print menu ... this is not acceptable because the browser is not able to print multi-page reports ... it can only print what is actually downloaded to the client in the browser ...

by outputting the html to a PDF file, the multi-page report can be printed by instantiating Adobe Acrobat Reader inside the browser ... Adobe knows it has a multi-page report and using Adobe's print option allows the entire report to be printed from the client's browser ...

that's the good news ... here's the problem:

i'm running all this website / database stuff on a lan ... the hosting machine (running XP pro) refuses to open the Adobe session inside the browser window ... it always pops open a second window although it does correctly display the report ... this machine is running Adobe Reader 6.0 ... another machine (Windows 2000) opens the Adobe Reader (version 4.0) inside the IE browser window as intended ... it does not open a second window for the Adobe session ...

so, the same website is producing different behavior on two different machines ... this seems to indicate the problem is being caused by browser/security settings rather than the website code ...

i found a "preferences setting" inside Adobe reader that says: "Display PDF in browser". When the box is checked, the PDF output does not display at all (i.e. not in the browser and not in a separate Adobe window) ... When I uncheck the box, the PDF displays in a separate Adobe window ...

the question is, what setting or settings need to be changed to get the Adobe Reader to open inside IE?

one last clue: when i access websites (not the one i've built) that open a PDF file, they open correctly inside IE ... how's that for confusing??

any ideas would be greatly appreciated ...

[Sgent]

1. I have firefox

And don't use adobe in the browser at all -- Firefox dls the file and opens it in a sepearte window.

My question is, what problem are you trying to solve that requires that it be opened in a browser rather than a separate window?

[welshTerrier2]

2. the goal is better integration ...

i mostly use Firefox also but the web app is much happier running in IE ...

it's OK but not ideal that Adobe opens in its own window ... as an example, the user can click a menu option that goes to a URL that contains the report ... right now what's happening is that the IE page opens as a blank page in the browser and a separate Adobe window opens with the report output ... the browser window is essentially empty ... i'd rather have it filled with the report to give the report output a sense of integration with the main app ...

and my question is not just for this specific application ... i'm trying to understand what settings, either in Adobe or in IE, are causing the current behavior ...

any ideas ??