Use FoxIt Reader in Chrome

Chrome fast. FoxIt reader fast. But by default they don’t work together so well, insisting on PDFs being saved to disk before FoxIt will open them.

Here’s how to get read PDFs inside Chrome using FoxIt reader:

  • Copy the file npFoxitReaderPlugin.dll from C:\Program Files\Foxit Software\Foxit Reader\plugins to C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\plugins
  • If the plugins directory doesn’t exist, then create it
  • C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome… only exists if you’ve used the Google Pack version of Chrome. If instead you’ve got the version that (oddly) shoves it into C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\ then you’ll need to find the right place under there for it.
  • Restart Chrome

(Source: Chrome forum post, and some fiddling/experimentation)

UPDATE: As commenters have noted, unfortunately the relevant files may be in place only if you installed the Firefox plugin with FoxIt Reader — which may not offer to do so unless it detects Firefox is installed.

7 thoughts on “Use FoxIt Reader in Chrome

  1. Phil

    You also need the FoxitReaderOCX.ocx loaded in the plugins folder.Foxit will only download this if you have Firefox installed 🙁 I had to install Firefox then install Foxit ,uninstall Firefox then paste the plugin folder ( .dll and .ocx) into Chrome.PDF files now open within Chrome with Foxit 🙂

  2. SB-X

    Perhaps this goes without saying, but you’ll need to have FoxIt’s auto-downloader download and install the Firefox plugin to begin with.

  3. roufamatic

    One more helpful hint: If you have the adobe plugin installed it may continue to hijack PDF’s, in my case opening them in the external Acrobat app. Type “about:plugins” in the chrome location and then click “disable” next to the Acrobat plugin and Foxit will take over. (Oddly the Foxit plugin doesn’t show up in this view, but it works all the same.)

  4. wladimir

    Thanks for share this, I don’t like to download every pdf I want to give a fast look.

  5. mister marmot

    I’m having trouble with blank pages on Iron branch of Chromium and will give this a try. Nice that a tip this ‘ancient’
    is still helpful. Thanks for the post!

Comments are closed.