PDFOPEN(1)																PDFOPEN(1)

NAME

       pdfopen, pdfclose - open or close a PDF file viewer

SYNOPSIS

       pdfopen [OPTION] FILE.PDF
       pdfclose FILE.PDF

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
	       output help and exit

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

       -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 <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  run-
	       ning  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" cycle.  Since PDF viewers such as  Adobe's  Acrobat
       Reader  ("acroread")  do  not  automatically refresh 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
       provided 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
       attempts 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 Acrobat 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.

       Version 0.83 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 already 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 instance 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

       Users  familiar with the Windows version of pdfopen might wonder about the lack of a --page <pagenumber> option.  Unfortunately, to date no
       GNU/Linux versions of acroread support this feature.  Anyone having a friend at Adobe is encouraged to  ask  them  to  implement  a  "-page
       <pagenumber>" command line option for acroread.

       These programs have been tested on Slackware64 Version 13.37 and a few other versions / distributions 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 win-
       dow 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 docu-
       ment, 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 expected, 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@acadiau.ca>.  I am the current maintainer of the X11 versions of pdfopen and pdf-
       close.  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).

pdfopen 0.83							    2012-01-28								PDFOPEN(1)