Ask Owen

I have read news online of security problems with Adobe Reader due to Javascript. Can I turn this off?

I had to do some reading up on this to tell you the truth, as I had no idea that Adobe Reader used Javascript. Turns out it’s quite easy to turn off, and if you come across a document that really needs it, you can always turn it back on again. Here’s what you do.

• Start Adobe Reader
• Click on the Edit menu
• Click on Preferences
• Click on Javascript in the left-hand column
• Untick the box labelled: Enable Acrobat Javascript
• Click OK to save the changes

Pretty simple really, if you know where to look; so if you start seeing strange things when you open a PDF document, like a popup taking you to a colon cleansing website; try turning Javascript off to see if it cures the problem.

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