When filing VAT100s online with HMRC, I print off and save a pdf copy to my backup system. When a report was produced as pdf, I used to be able to see it.
However, I recently received a windows update and now when in HMRC's website, when I try to download a VAT100 as a pdf the screen is completely blank.
I believe that I need to make an amendment to my "folder options" in windows; that was how I originally sorted the problem but cannot seem to find the correct section in my windows again.
Can anyone kindly give me some pointers? Much appreciated.
Replies (18)
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Last time I had that problem ...
... I had to go to Tools/Internet Options/"Advanced" tab
then scroll down to Security settings
and uncheck "do not save encrypted page s to disc".
That was in IE version 8.
Your problem may be different
With kind regards
Clint Westwood
It's Adobe X
I had this problem and I think it's related to Adobe X, I had to uninstall it and reinstall Adobe 9 as I believe the HMRC site isn't compatible with the new version.
Mmm ...
We have the same problem - the address bar says "about blank" and nothing appears - but we use Firefox and Adobe X, so the "save encrypted pages" fix in IE8 does not help to us. I am fairly sure that we only started having the problem after we installed Adobe X; I must admit that I don't like its interface as much, but I cannot be bothered to go back and re-install Adobe 9.
We get round the problem by right clicking on the PDF button and saving the file. It then opens in Adobe X perfectly happily.
Adobe X fix
Open Adobe Reader X (that always sounds so sinister to me!)
Click "Edit"
Click "preferences"
Click "internet" on the left hand side
Make sure the "Display PDF in browser" option is unchecked.
Click "OK".
This should work, though you have to save the pdf to your desktop first to view it.
Adobe 9
It was a bit of a hassle at first but am happier now I've back dated to Adobe 9 and it all works how it used to!!
What a pain though!!
Adobe X
I have just received an ICAEW Tax Faculty Newswire on which one of the topics is the same as this thread. Here is one of the comments:
"| by Janet on 19 July 2011, 16:29
The Revenue have confirmed that you will not be able to view statements if you are using Adobe Reader X. They have not yet found a "work around"" Now that I have looked at the VAT Service Issues, I can see it for myself.
The fix I mentioned......
....does indeed work for SA and PAYE pdfs (but not tried it on VAT admittedly) - I know because I have done it on my own machine.
What's more, I followed the guidance from here (solution 2)
Like others, up until Adobe X, the "do not save encrypted pages to disk" solution worked fine. Only after installing Adobe X did it fail again, but the above fix soon sorted that out.
Running IE8 by the way.
OK in IE8
I have tried it using IE8 and the fix does indeed work, but not in Firefox. However, you can still right click and save the PDF file, then view it in Adobe X.
You beat me to it
I get this problem intermittently too on sites other than HMRC. Since it's not a permanent issue, I found that Euan's trick of right-clicking and then opening the downloaded file in Acrobat works fine. It's become second nature to me these days.
Happens to me too.
I have always found that to "file - save as" to the desktop or a folder of your choice results in a download, and the .pdf can then be opened.
Adobe Acrobat is not ideal anyway
Adobe software has a long and distinguished history of being buggy and open to abuse by malware. I recommend you avoid it totally and use PDF-Xchange PDF viewer, which is faster, safer and free.
Firefox
Euan,
I'm running Adobe Reader X, Firefox 5.01 and have not had any problems.
Do you have the Adobe Acrobat plug in (v 10.1.0.534) installed?
Under Tools=>Options=>Applications are the various Pdf options set to 'Use Adobe Acrobat (in Firefox)'?
@jndavs
I think you have got it!
My Adobe Acrobat Document (application/pdf) was set to "Always ask". I have changed it to "Use Adobe Acrobat (in Firefox)" like the other ones and now I can see the HMRC PDFs!
PDF Problem
Hi
I had same problem when I install IE9. After installation I could not see or print any pdf files. I have tried to solve this problem by microsoft updates and made changes on the IE adjustments like other users recomended.
In the end I solved the problem by installing Firefox.
Problems with PDFs over secure Internet connections
I haven't checked on HMRC's site specifically, but when I tested other sites with a range of browsers and Reader versions, I found the problems were mostly associated with using Internet Explorer with the "do not save encrypted pages to disc" option ticked.
As the behaviour depends on the exact headers supplied by the website, you don't get the same behaviour on each website.
The problems were made worse by the following
- Using Reader X (with any version of IE) or
- Using Internet Explorer version 9 (with any PDF viewer)
In IE9, with the "do not save encrypted pages to disc" option ticked, it won't even let you save the file to disc by choosing "Save Target As" from the right-click menu. It goes through the motions and then gives you a vague error message, saying the file "could not be downloaded". I think this is the same across all secure websites, as this setting in IE9 causes it to ignore site-specific caching headers.
I understand that previously, HMRC used a combination of caching headers that only worked with "do not save encrypted pages to disc" unticked, so they used to advise people to tick it. That broke a load of websites that were designed to work in IE's default configuration. With the new behaviour of Reader X and IE9, I think HMRC will need to revisit that decision.
10 years down the line and this problem still exists. I have spent all day trying to access an HMRC PDF. I've only managed to do it with the help of this post. Thank you