Q: When I try to open an attached file in PDF Studio on my Chromebook it fails to open. How can I fix this?
A: When running Linux applications on a Chromebook it runs inside a Linux container created by Chrome OS. The container is completely separated from the main Chrome operating system and so is unable to use any applications installed directly on Chrome OS. This container is also just the minimum Linux distribution which contains no other software (including even basic software to open image or text files).
How to fix
To fix this all that needs to be done is install your preferred viewer for the file types you need to open. This needs to be done directly in the Linux container so that PDF Studio is able to access the application when trying to open the file attachments.
See below for suggestions on the most common file types that you may need.
Office Files – Word, Excel, PowerPoint
LibreOffice can be used to view Microsoft Office documents. To install follow the instructions below:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install libreoffice
Image Files – JPEG, PNG, Tiff, etc…
GIMP is a popular image editor that supports nearly all formats with the power of Adobe Photoshop. To install follow the instructions below:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gimp
Media Files – Audio & Video
VLC Media Player supports nearly all audio and video formats. To install follow the instructions below:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install vlc
NOTE: Any Linux based file viewers / editors will work, these are just some of the more popular recommended applications.
