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Home / Chromebook / Chrome PDF Plugin in Ubuntu – How To Enable

Chrome PDF Plugin in Ubuntu – How To Enable

November 17, 2010 by Dinsan Francis | Updated: September 4, 2020 35 Comments

There are many differences between Chromium and Chrome when it comes to the principles and licenses etc. But, from a user point of view, there are certain features that work only in Chrome and not on Chromium, the opensource version. But the good news is, we can get most of those things work on Chromium with a little tweaking.

read all the news about Chrome OS and CR 48 on Chromestory.com

If you are using Chromium on Ubuntu and wants it to play nice with the new Chrome inbuilt PDF viewer from Google, here is how to do it. ( I will post the windows version soon )

  • Download a Google Chrome release that matches your processor architecture (x86/x86_64):
    # wget http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-unstable_current_i386.deb
    # wget http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-unstable_current_amd64.deb
  • extract the .deb:
    # ar vx <previously downloaded .deb>
  • extract the data payload:
    # tar --lzma -xvf data.tar.lzma
  • copy the plugin to destination folder:
    (note: /usr/lib/chromium-browser is valid for my Ubuntu PPA version, might be/opt/chromium-browser or something on other distributions)
    # sudo cp opt/google/chrome/libpdf.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/
  • restart any open Chromium processes
  • check about:plugins for the Chrome PDF Viewer, should not need any enabling

Hope this helps ! More tips on Chromium and Ubuntu versions are welcome ! and if you are asking me why should we use Chromium when Chrome is there .. hmm, there are situations where you have only Chromium, and not chrome. Like when I tried jolicloud recently …. I will write about that too soon ! .. remind me if I forget LOL !

Related : How to Use Google Chrome As Your Default PDF Reader on Windows

Via Azmo’s Weblog.

Filed Under: Chromebook Tagged With: Ubuntu

About Dinsan Francis

Content Strategist and Digital Minimalist. Loves testing new Chromebook features and writing about them. Favorite Chrome OS Channel is Canary. | Twitter

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Comments

  1. Dick says

    November 21, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    Hi, I managed to install the plugin properly and it shows up in about:plugins page. But on trying to view a pdf file, it give me a missing plugin. What could have possibly gone wrong?

    Reply
  2. floh says

    November 21, 2010 at 5:32 pm

    I’m having the same problem as Dick, the installation is no problem and on the plugin page the plugin is fully recognized but when opening a file it says “Missing plugin”.

    Reply
    • chrome story says

      November 21, 2010 at 8:05 pm

      do you have all plugins enabled ? did you try restarting the computer ?

      Reply
      • floh says

        November 21, 2010 at 10:32 pm

        I have enabled all plugins and restarted my computer, but it still doesn’t work. Maybe my version from chromium-daily/beta ppa is too old…

        Reply
  3. Griz says

    November 23, 2010 at 8:06 pm

    You can install gPDF for an extension for Chromium.

    Reply
    • floh says

      November 23, 2010 at 8:46 pm

      I tried that, but for me personally the google docs online site is very slow in loading, so I wanted to use a local viewer. Maybe I manage to make evince load inside the chromium window…

      Reply
  4. Noel says

    December 1, 2010 at 12:41 am

    Missing plugin…

    Reply
  5. Dick says

    December 3, 2010 at 4:13 pm

    Seems like everyone is getting the same problem.

    Reply
  6. Ricardo says

    February 24, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    Thanks. Really useful

    Reply
  7. matze says

    February 26, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    Thanks!
    This is working with Chromium 11.0!
    Very nice!

    Reply
  8. cristiano says

    April 26, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    note: replace
    > sudo cp opt/google/chrome/libpdf.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/
    to
    > sudo cp /opt/google/chrome/libpdf.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/

    Reply
  9. Luis says

    April 30, 2011 at 2:57 pm

    Same here… missing plugin

    Reply
  10. Eric says

    June 11, 2011 at 1:04 am

    Missing plugin………
    Chromium 6.0.472.63 (59945) Debian 6.0.1

    Reply
  11. Júlio says

    July 29, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    Same here: “Missing plugin”
    Chromium 12.0.742.112 (90304) Ubuntu 11.04 (64-bits)

    Reply
  12. nigeldodd says

    August 30, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    thanks Azmo. A good workaround for an unusual omission by Google.

    Reply
  13. fridolin says

    September 18, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    thanks for this article,
    works fine with opensuse 11.4 and chromium 15.0.870.0 .

    I only had to change the comandline to:
    “sudo cp opt/google/chrome/libpdf.so /usr/lib64/chromium/”,
    because I use a 64bit-system and opensuse has only a “chromium”-folder, without “-browser”.

    Reply
  14. Tim Lu says

    October 3, 2011 at 3:59 am

    Same: missing plug-in.
    Chromium 12.0.742.112 Ubuntu 11.04

    I installed the GoogleDocsPDFViewer ( http://www.chromeextensions.org/other/googledocspdfviewer/ ) and it works. Note: it is *not* plugin, just an extension that redirect to GoogleDocs. But at least I can see pdfs now.

    Reply
    • ubuntu 11.04 says

      November 24, 2011 at 4:25 pm

      i get “no permission” error

      Reply
  15. ubuntu 11.04 says

    November 24, 2011 at 4:24 pm

    works well thanks

    Reply
  16. lawrence says

    November 29, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    works, ubuntu 11.10, chromium 15.0.874.106

    Reply
  17. Treesong says

    January 5, 2012 at 8:28 am

    Have any of you tried testing out multiple sites to be sure it isn’t just a problem with the site you’re viewing? Here’s the problem I was encountering and how I fixed it.

    I’m using Ubuntu 11.10 and Chromium 15.0.874.106. Before reading this article, I was having the same “missing plugin” problem. Following the above instructions didn’t fix the problem for the site I was trying to access. But it DID fix it for most sites. For example, this site didn’t used to work for me, and after following the instructions in this article, the PDF parts work:

    http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=1682

    But the original site I was trying to access still didn’t work!

    Well, it turns out that the site I was trying to access was doing a very dumb thing. Rather than just trying to embed the PDF, it was checking to see if I had Adobe Reader. If I did, it used JavaScript to embed the PDF. If not, it displayed an error message without even trying to display the PDF or offering a link to it. So since I’m using Chrome PDF Viewer rather than Adobe Reader, that site will never work properly for me until they redesign it.

    Anyway, just a thought. If you’re having trouble getting Chrome PDF Viewer to work properly, test it out on multiple sites. The site you’re trying to view PDFs on may just be poorly designed and refusing to show you the PDF because it doesn’t detect Adobe Reader.

    Reply
  18. Max says

    January 12, 2012 at 8:17 pm

    Do you run a 32bit or 64bit Ubuntu? I have exactly the same config (Ubuntu 11.10 64bit and Chromium 15.0.874.106) and still having the “missing plugin” error (and it’s NOT site-dependent: I tried on dozens of different websites). 🙁

    Reply
  19. kaendesmut says

    February 1, 2012 at 3:21 am

    Same problem here (missing plugin) chromium 16 kubuntu (11.10) 64-bit

    Reply
  20. frank says

    February 4, 2012 at 12:49 am

    The plugin works with google chrome (and not chromium), You can download the .deb file here: http://www.google.ch/chrome/index.html?hl=en

    Reply
  21. anon says

    March 10, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    I found the solution to the “plugin missing” issue. You may need to use the libpdf.so from the stable chrome instead :
    http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb
    http://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

    Reply
    • kayn says

      March 13, 2012 at 3:59 am

      Stable work for me, thx

      Reply
    • guest says

      March 18, 2012 at 1:49 am

      confirmed fix! thanks anon

      running mint 11

      Reply
  22. Max says

    March 10, 2012 at 7:19 pm

    Just tried that and no luck: still missing plugin 🙁

    Chromium 17.0.963.65 (Developer Build 124586 Linux) Ubuntu 11.10

    Reply
  23. Gust says

    March 13, 2012 at 2:34 am

    Works with the stable as anon said.

    Gust

    Reply
  24. Max says

    March 13, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    I suppose you’re all on Ubuntu 32bits and used the i386.deb? Can someone else and give feedback with 64bits?

    Reply
  25. anon says

    March 18, 2012 at 5:17 am

    Same results as everyone else, on Ubuntu amd64 – unstable results in “missing plugin” error, and anon comment from march 10 2012 instructing to use stable instead works fine

    Reply
  26. Max says

    March 19, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    OK my mistake, it’s working fine now, must have done something wrong the first time. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks for the fix!

    Reply
  27. Veronica says

    March 29, 2012 at 12:28 am

    mmm i have tried the fix above downloaded both version but it’s not working. I have Ubuntu 11.10 64bit and Chromium 17.0.963.79 (Developer Build 125985 Linux) Ubuntu 11.10
    Is there any workaround about this? How did 64bit users above got it working?
    Help!

    Thanks in advance!

    Reply
  28. josh says

    March 31, 2012 at 6:47 pm

    worked with the stable chrome 32bit.deb on ubuntu 11.10 using chromium 18.0.997.0

    xxx

    Reply
  29. timo says

    September 29, 2013 at 6:01 pm

    https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
    worked for me with ubuntu 13.04 64bit, chromium 28.0.1500.71

    Reply

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