PDFOPEN(1) - man - phpman

PDFOPEN(1)                                                                                PDFOPEN(1)



NAME
       pdfopen, pdfclose - open or close a PDF file viewer

SYNOPSIS
       pdfopen [ options ]  [ --file ]  file.pdf
       pdfclose [ --file ]  file.pdf

OPTIONS
       -h, --help, -?
               output help and exit.

       -v, --version, -V
               output the version number and exit.

       -p <n>, --page <n>
               when  starting  the  viewer, display page <n> of the document (notes: not all viewers
               support this feature, and even in those cases this option only has  effect  when  the
               document is initially loaded).  This option is over-ridden by -g.

       -g <named destination>, --goto <named destination>
               when  starting the viewer, display the page of the document containing the named des‐
               tination (notes: not all viewers support this feature, and even in those  cases  this
               option only has effect when the document is initially loaded).

       -r, --reset_focus
               after  sending  commands  to  the PDF viewer, attempt to reset the input focus to the
               window which had focus before the commands were sent.

       -viewer, --viewer <ar9|ar9-tab|ar8|ar7|ar5|xpdf|evince>
               use (respectively) Adobe Reader 9 (in a new window), Adobe Reader 9 (in a new tab  of
               a  running  AR9,  if  any),  Adobe  Reader 8, Adobe Reader 7, Adobe Reader 5, xpdf or
               evince as the PDF viewer program.  Adobe Reader 9 (in a new window) is the default.

RATIONALE
       At certain points of TeX document preparation, many people repeat a  "edit-compile-view"  cy‐
       cle.   Since PDF viewers such as Adobe's Acrobat Reader ("acroread") do not automatically re‐
       fresh the display when the PDF file changes, this cycle can be more cumbersome than  desired.
       The  pdfopen  program provides the ability to automate the reloading of the PDF document when
       it is changed.

       Note: there seems to be little need for pdfclose under GNU/Linux, since (unlike the situation
       for  MS windows) acroread does not lock the PDF file, which would prevent pdftex (or a DVI to
       PDF converter) from creating a new version of the PDF output file.  However, pdfclose is pro‐
       vided in case someone finds it useful.

DESCRIPTION
       pdfopen  searches  for  an  instance  of the specified (or default) PDF viewer displaying the
       specified PDF file.  If there is already an instance of the given viewer displaying the given
       file, the viewer is instructed to reload the file.  If no such instance is found, pdfopen at‐
       tempts to run the specified viewer on the specified document.

       The default viewer is "acroread", which could start any one of a number of versions of  Acro‐
       bat  Reader,  depending on what is installed on your system.  However, the commands to reload
       the current document vary from one version of acroread to another; consequently, if  you  are
       using a version of acroread other than AR9, you should explicitly specify the viewer program.

       This version of pdfopen accepts the following viewer options:
       ar9, ar9-tab, ar8, ar7, ar5, xpdf, and evince.
       The  difference  between  ar9 and ar9-tab is significant when there is no instance of AR9 al‐
       ready displaying the requested document.  In this situation, while ar9 will request  acroread
       to  create a new instance of acroread (and thus open a new window) by using the -openInNewIn‐‐
       stance argument, ar9-tab starts acroread without this argument; if there is  already  an  in‐
       stance of acroread running, a new tab will be opened in an existing window.

       pdfclose  searches  for  one of the above PDF viewers displaying the given file and instructs
       the viewer to "close" the window.  In most cases, the PDF viewer continues to  run,  possibly
       now  displaying  just a blank window.  (This behaviour varies somewhat from one PDF viewer to
       another.)

PORTABILITY AND AVAILABILITY
       These programs have been tested on Slackware64 Version 14.1 and a few other versions  /  dis‐
       tributions of GNU/Linux.  The code is reasonably generic and should work out of the box using
       most recent X11 implementations.  (Reports to the contrary are welcome, particularly if  they
       come with robust fixes.)

       These  programs are designed for X11-based systems.  If you somehow find compiled versions of
       these programs on a system using another window system, they are very unlikely to be  of  any
       use to you.

       Source  and  binaries  of the programs can be downloaded from CTAN://support/xpdfopen/ (e.g.,
       http://mirror.ctan.org/support/xpdfopen).

CAVEATS
       If you use ar9-tab to reload the PDF document and the instance of  acroread  with  the  given
       document  is currently displaying some other document, the command causes your document to be
       displayed, but not reloaded.

       pdfopen works by looking for a window with a name (window title) matching that  expected  for
       the  given  viewer  and document.  If for some reason your viewer's window name is not as ex‐
       pected, pdfopen may not work for you.

       With at least AR9 and some window managers, using pdfopen to reload the document gives  focus
       to the acroread window, even though the mouse cursor is not necessarily in that window.  This
       can be annoying.  The -reset_focus option can be used to deal with this problem.

AUTHOR
       This manual page was written by Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond AT acadiau.ca>.  I am the current main‐
       tainer of the X11 versions of pdfopen and pdfclose.  Report any bugs you find to me.  Feature
       enhancement requests are welcome, coded enhancements even more so.

       Past authors: Fabrice Popineau wrote the MS-windows versions of  pdfopen  and  pdfclose  upon
       which  these  programs were originally based.  Taco Hoekwater created the GNU/Linux versions,
       up to Version 0.61 (including some documentation which inspired parts of this man page).  Pe‐
       ter Breitenlohner has contributed both code and suggestions to versions later than 0.61.



pdfopen 0.86                                 2014-05-24                                   PDFOPEN(1)