How can I open an Excel .xlsm file attached/embedded in an Adobe Acrobat Pro DC document? I keep getting this error message: "Adobe Acrobat cannot open the file attachment because your PDF file attachment settings do not allow this file type to be opened."
Excel – Adobe Acrobat Pro DC can’t open attached/embedded Excel .xlsm file
adobe-acrobatattachmentsmicrosoft excel
Best Answer
Searching the internet for this specific error message gives me this result: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/error-adobe-acrobat-DC-cannot-open-the-file-attachment-settings-do-not-allow-this-file-type-to-be-opened-after-august-release.html
Which tells us that this is by design:
This page suggests you can set Adobe Reader policy and settings via the Registry to possibly whitelist certain file types: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AppSec/attachments.html
Start by opening Edit > Preferences > Trust Manager and enable Allow opening of non-PDF attachments with external applications, if it is not already enabled.
Because the information in the first document I found suggests that these attachments are treated specially due to being particular security issues, you'll probably need to manually specify that Acrobat is allowed to open them using the information from the second link above.