Disable PDF viewer in Modern User Interface SharePoint 2019

Question

I have been testing SharePoint 2019 and I have a question related to Modern User Interface PDF Viewer Configurations.

On my SharePoint 2019 On-Premise environment, I have Office Web Apps Configured but we don’t want to Open PDF in the Office Web-App, we want to open it in the Client Application.

In the previous SharePoint versions, I used the commands below:

• Get-SPWOPIBinding –Application "WordPDF" | Remove-SPWOPIBinding -Confirm:$false

• Did an IIS reset.

• Cleared browser Cache.

The PDF opened in Client Application for SharePoint Classic User Interface but in Modern User Interface it opens in default PDF Viewer(screenshot below).

Answer 1

i think, in SharePoint 2019 preview release PDF viewer included and pdf files open in SharePoint without Office online.

"SharePoint Server 2019 Public Preview can now render PDF documents on the server. Users no longer need to rely on a PDF viewer client application."

But this feature is not stable and it is removed from the documentation as well. I would wait for RTM release of SharePoint 2019 then try it.

Check the open item under the feedback at the end of page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/SharePoint/what-s-new/new-and-improved-features-in-sharepoint-server-2019