OLE / DDE Commands

[SchnickSchnack]

Hello,

is the PDF-XChange Viewer capable of receiving DDE/OLE commands like the Adobe reader? As I'm using your Viewer together with a LaTeX-IDE, this would be an interesting feature.
I've searched around for a while but found no answer.

Thanks in advance,
Ruediger

[halabund]

I too would very much like to see better support for working with TeX. Either through the same solution that we use today with Adobe Reader (DDE commands), or some better solution (other method of control or not locking the file). Unfortunately the free version of Adobe Reader does not allow to go back to automatically jump back to the last viewed page.

If XChange viewer had better support for working with TeX, its usage share would go up instantly. (There are no free, quality PDF viewers that support this kind of usage).

See also this post.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

We can realize support for DDE into the viewer, but I'm afraid, again as into Adobe Reader -- just a limited set of commands will be available into free version.

By the way, there is ActiveX SDK for the viewer (OLE), so you can use it to embedd the viewer into your application.

And about non-locking access to the file -- as I told a long time ago, we have no plans to realize such feature.

[halabund]

Thanks for the reply!

We can realize support for DDE into the viewer, but I'm afraid, again as into Adobe Reader -- just a limited set of commands will be available into free version.

Even if you don't support going back to the last viewed page, it would already be an improvement over Adobe Reader if PDF XChange Viewer supported closing files (with DDE commands) that have not been opened by a DDE command (Adobe Reader cannot do this).

By the way, there is ActiveX SDK for the viewer (OLE), so you can use it to embedd the viewer into your application.

Unfortunately, that requires much more programming experience than writing simple pdfopen/pdfclose-like tools ... and costs even more than buying the full Acrobat. So it is not really an option for LaTeX users, who only need to automate closing/opening/jumping around in the file.

[uwezi]

We can realize support for DDE into the viewer, but I'm afraid, again as into Adobe Reader -- just a limited set of commands will be available into free version.

By the way, there is ActiveX SDK for the viewer (OLE), so you can use it to embedd the viewer into your application.

And about non-locking access to the file -- as I told a long time ago, we have no plans to realize such feature.

Is this still the latest answer on this topic?

I really like PDF_Xchange and since a few days ago I am the proud owner of the Pro-package. However, like already mentioned by others I also would greatly appreciate if it could work together with an LaTeX IDE, such as WinEDT or TeXniccenter. This would require that at least the PDF file can be opened and closed remotely. This would still have the disadvantage that the document would always be re-opened from the first page and not from the current position.

Even better would be of course, if the PDF file would not be locked for reading, as is the case for e.g. xPDF under Linux.

Uwe.

[georgl]

Hi,

is there any update with respect to the DDE commands? For Latex, it would be sufficient if File -> Open... and File -> Close (and possibly Go To Line/Page) would be implemented. Is it possible to release a version with support for these commands and document somewhere how the commands should be used (DDE command name and arguments).

This would be very much appreciated.

Thanks & Regards,

George

[uwezi]

Hi,

is there any update with respect to the DDE commands? For Latex, it would be sufficient if File -> Open... and File -> Close (and possibly Go To Line/Page) would be implemented. Is it possible to release a version with support for these commands and document somewhere how the commands should be used (DDE command name and arguments).

This would be very much appreciated.

Thanks & Regards,

George

There does not seem to be any interest nor activity from Tracker's side in regard of this topic. It's a shame, because it doesn't seem to be too much to ask for...

Uwe.

[Chris - PDF-XChange]

Hi guys,

As the development team have been quite busy improving all of our products constantly some features require higher priority than others which does not by any means, mean your requests have fallen on deaf ears, just prioritized ones

We appreciate you patience and I've asked the dev team when they think they can look at adding the limited DDE functionality you requested.

Regards,
Chris

[georgl]

That sounds great Please keep us updated. I'm actually preparing to teach Latex to a group of students next semester (in a workshop, scheduled for 8 September) and would like to use PDF-XChange Viewer in that unit (to promote great software). Do you think it will be possible to release a (alpha/beta) version with support for DDE until then?

Cheers,

George

[BigMike]

I'm not really sure, what you need for your course. Depending on the editor you are going to use, to produce the LaTeX files, you can work smoothly with PDF-XChange Viewer.
I'm using LEd which does the compilation via a batch file. Before a recompilation, closing the pdf via command line works fine here

For the command line options, you may have a look at the manual of PDF-XChange Viewer, section 1.6 - it's also possible to open a pdf on a specified page via command line.

From what I read in another post, locking the pdf is needed, because of the editing features of the viewer. If the file isn't locked, you can't guarantee a consistent state, if the pdf gets modified inside and outside the viewer.

[uwezi]

I might be mistaken, but in the PDF manual of PDF-XChange v2.x there is no mention of command line options. Nor does it seem to work when I try it. What command to you use to close an individual PDF file in PDF-XChange?

1.6 Command Line option
The PDF-Viewer may be started with a PDF file or URL name as the first item on the command line.
This facilitates starting the Viewer in File Associations or using Windows ShellExecute.
The form of the command line for using this option is:
"C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\PDF-XChange Viewer\pdf-viewer\PDFXCview.exe" "%f"
Note that the PDF file/URL is represented by "%f" with double-quotes. These are necessary when the
form of the file name may have spaces or other symbols in it that otherwise prevent proper parsing of
the command line.
At the current time there is no "print option" available on the command line.

[BigMike]

Hm, I extracted and attached the corresponding pages from my manual. Maybe you have an older version of the manual!?

In short: To close an already opened pdf use

Code: Select all

PDFXCview.exe /close "PathToPDF\FileName.pdf"

For more options, have a look at the attached file

[uwezi]

This is definitely not part of v2.0 (build 0037) which I purchased and installed a year ago. If this really has been implemented - and obviously it has been! - then I wonder why it hasn't been announced here as a solution earlier...

I will give the newer version a try

Thanks for the tip!!!


Uwe.

[BigMike]

You're right - according to the changelog it was implemented into version 2.0.0038.2.
If you're still using build 0037, maybe you should have a look at the changelog, to see what else has been implemented.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

uwezi,

please share your impression from the latest build and of course if there is anything else troubling you here at the forums we will do our best to try and solve your problems.

Regards,
Stefan

[uwezi]

uwezi,

please share your impression from the latest build and of course if there is anything else troubling you here at the forums we will do our best to try and solve your problems.

Regards,
Stefan

I am using WinEdt http://www.winedt.org as my LaTeX editor and GUI. Together with the latest pre-defined macro set Acrobat CloseDoc.edt and Acrobat OpenDoc.edtfrom WinEdt's homepage (section "Temporary downloads"...). Now with PDF-XChange Viewer 2.0 (build 41.5) everything works fine!!!

It works even better than with Acrobat Reader since PDF XChange Viewer re-opens the document at the last viewed position instead of the first page of the document!

Great work - but for the future: please Tracker, inform your users about such changes!

Uwe.

[Chris - PDF-XChange]

Yes, that one slipped by me as well, so many improvements so quickly, it's hard to keep up sometimes.

I'd say that is a good problem to have.

Keep the version history page bookmarked.

Cheers,
Chris

[georgl]

Hi Uwe/Chris,

I had a quick look at the winedit homepage, but cannot find the "Temporary Downloads" section. Could one of you please direct me to the correct macro? And is PDFXChange Viewer if used with winedit controlled by DDE commands or by command line arguments? I would currently require DDE commands as I am using Eclipse with the Texlipse plugin for LaTeX editing. It would be very nice if Tracker could put up a documentation for the DDE commands.

Thanks & Regards,

George

[uwezi]

The WinEdt macros can be found here: http://www.winedt.org/temp/.

As for how it works - I actually don't care... But as far as I understand, Tracker has so far only implemented command line functions.


Uwe.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

georgl,

Indeed we do not support DDE at this time, but I had an answer from our developers that it might be added in the future.
As there are other tasks to be done that are with higher priority it might take a while for this feature to be included.

Regards,
Stefan

[georgl]

Hi Stefan,

thanks for the clarification. Please post an update to this topic if DDE commands eventually become available.

Thanks,

George