I have a user who is unable to open some PDF documents that are attached to emails. When she tries to open them she gets this error:

"We're having trouble opening this PDF. It exceeds the maximal page size supported by Word." I'm not certain why Word is attempting to open a PDF attachment as it should be the PDF reader installed on her PC. She can send the email to her co-workers and they can open it just fine.

My suspicion is that something is messed up with the default document handler causing PDF attachments to try to be opened by Word instead of Adobe Reader. Or could there be another issue?

Hi Jonathan,

Based on your description, have you ever tried to download PDF file to local computer and if it still open in Word Program?

I suppose your issue might be caused by the default program starts changed in the users computer.

Please try the method and check if it works.

1. Right click the PDF on desktop.
2. Choose Properties.
3. Next to Open with, click Change.
4. Select Adobe Reader from the list.
5. Click OK.
6. If it can be checked, click Always use this application to open file of this type.
7. Click Apply and OK.

In addition, with this error message this issue also might be caused by the page size of PDF larger than Word. In fact, the maximum page size of Word is 22" x 22". You can check your PDF page size in your own computer.

After trying these methods, if the issue still exists. Please let me know Im glad to help and follow up your reply.

Hope its helpful.

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support

Actually the customer figured out the problem before I could schedule a time to work on the computer and it turned out to be simple. There was no PDF reader installed on the computer. She installed Adobe Reader and problem solved.