There are a few Mac OS X applications and browser plug-ins that I've used for so very long that I forget that not everyone knows about them. I'll be posting about a number of them in the future. The Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin is one of those additions that I've come to depend on so much that when I get a new Mac, or a friend gets a new Mac, I go install it. The Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin allows you to click on a link to a .pdf file on a Web page and read it right there in your browser. You can print, save, open it in Acrobat or Preview, zoom; even visually divide the .pdf document into two panes so you can look at an image or chart and the text that refers to it at the same time.

It's free for personal use, but were I an office with a lot of Macs, I'd absolutely pay the bargain site fee price of $69.00. The current version (2.3.1) of the PDF Browser Plugin supports Mac OS X 10.4 and later, and Safari, Firefox, iCab, OmniWeb Web browsers. Installation is dead easy. Download the disk image, then drag and drop the PDF Browser Plugin file into the /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/. NOTE: this is not the current Library of the user; this is the System Library; you need to navigate to the top level of your Startup drive. If you don't have Admin access on your Mac, then just drag and drop the PDF Browser Plugin file into the Internet Plug-Ins folder inside your home folder's Library folder. Then quit and restart your Web browser.

A couple of caveats: If Adobe Reader 7 or the QuickTime plug-in are set to handle PDF documents, they will override the PDF Browser Plugin. You need to tell them not to attempt to handle .pdf files automatically. For Adobe Reader 7, launch Adobe Reader, then go to the Preferences setting in the Adobe Reader menu. Click the Internet section, then turn off the option to "Display PDF in browser using Adobe Reader 7." If the Qucktime Plug-in is attempting to handle .pdf files you'll notice that you can only see the first page of a .pdf file. To tell QuickTime to stop attempting to handle .pdf files in your Web browser, open System Preferences. Click the QuickTime preferences pane, then click the "MIME settings..." option in the Plug-In pane. Make sure that under "Images - Still image files" "PDF Image" is turned off. Do pay attention to the Readme file on the disk image; it includes a list of very handy keyboard shortcuts that can save you an incredible amount of time. Don't forget to check out the control-click options (right-click for you two-button mousers), either.

If you find the Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin useful, and I'm pretty sure you will, then you should definitely check out their Word Browser Plugin, which performs a similar function for MS Word documents in the browser.