Support for embedded media files?

[guebert]

Hallo!

From our business partners we get sometimes so called PDFs with "embedded attachments". I can see this only in Adobe Reader, but not in PDF-XChange. When will your tool support this feature?

Michael

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Support for attachments should be added into build 42 of the viewer.

[guebert]

Is the date of release already known?

Would it be possible, to add at least a notification feature "There are embedded files inside this PDF!" in V 41.x?

Michael

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

I'm afraid no. Build 41.4 was the last into 41.x series.

[guebert]

I'm afraid no. Build 41.4 was the last into 41.x series.

That's good news, so Build 42 is about to be released soon, isn't it?

But ... I'm using 41.3 (not .4) and there's no update available ... ?!

Michael

[ugradedeveloper]

Would it be possible, to add at least a notification feature "There are embedded files inside this PDF!" in V 41.x?
Michael

It is possible using Javascript to detect the existence of File or Sound attachments in a PDF even though the Viewer cannot display them. I can post the code for this if you are interested.

I can vouch that build 41.4 does exist because I am using it myself. Instead of relying on the built-in "check for updates" feature, you may need to go directly to the download page and fetch it.

[guebert]

It is possible using Javascript to detect the existence of File or Sound attachments in a PDF even though the Viewer cannot display them. I can post the code for this if you are interested.

Yes, please!

And add a how-to use this code with pdf-x-change, please.

Michael

[ugradedeveloper]

Michael,
The first thing you need to know is that in the Acrobat Javascript interface, sound and file attachments are treated as a type of annotation. They are identified by the "type" property of the annotation object. This will be "Sound" or "FileAttachment" respectively.

Here is the code that I use to check for annotations of a certain type in a document. The following, when passed to the RunJavaScript function, will return the number of annotations in the document:
"var annots = this.getAnnots(); var n = 0; if (annots != null) n = annots.length; n;"

The following will return the type of the first annotation in the document (remember that array indices are zero-based):
"var annots = this.getAnnots(); annots[0].type;"

This allows you to determine how many sound and/or file attachments are in a document. You could combine these two Javascript commands into a single loop that would simply break when an attachment of a particular type was found. You would then have a true/false value instead of a total count.

Lewis

[ugradedeveloper]

Michael,

I just noticed that you posted your question in the End Users forum and not the SDK forum. Sorry, I read both forums daily and sometimes lose track of which one I am reading. If you are not using the PDF-XChange Viewer SDK, then what I have written will probably be of no use to you. Sorry.

Lewis

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

If you are not using the PDF-XChange Viewer SDK, then what I have written will probably be of no use to you. Sorry.

Even end-user can write and execute JavaScript into the viewer. He just need to open JavaScript console and use it (shortcut Ctrl+J).

Sample functions and their usage:

Code: Select all

function IsThereSoundOrFAOnThePage(nPage)
{
  var a = this.getAnnots(nPage);
  if (a != null)
  {
    for (i = 0; i < a.length; i++)
      if ((a[i].type == 'Sound') || (a[i].type == 'FileAttachment'))
        return true;
  }
  return false;
}

function IsThereSoundOrFAInDocument()
{
  for (i = 0; i < this.numPages; i++)
    if (IsThereSoundOrFAOnThePage(i))
      return true;
  return false;
} 

IsThereSoundOrFAInDocument();