VPREREX(1)VPREREX(1)NAME
vprerex - graphical front-end and viewer for the prerex(1) prerequisite-chart editor
SYNOPSIS
vprerex basefile[.tex] [ chartfile[.tex] ]
vprerex file.pdf
vprerex
DESCRIPTION
vprerex (visual prerex) is a GUI front-end and viewer for the prerex(1) interactive editor of prerequisite-chart descriptions in the pre-
rex(5) format. The viewer may be used just as a minimalistic viewer of arbitrary PDF files but supports editing of charts generated using
prerex.sty(7) by allowing coordinates of course boxes, arrows, and background points to be conveyed back to the prerex(1) command-line
using the clipboard.
USAGE
If vprerex is invoked on a PDF file, it simply displays that file.
If the (first) argument does not have the .pdf suffix, it is assumed to be the base file for a LaTeX document containing a prerequisite-
chart description in prerex(5) format, to be edited using prerex(1). If a second argument is supplied, it is regarded as an included file
containing the specific chart environment to be edited.
If no arguments are supplied, a file-opening dialog allows the user the specify the prerex(1) base file to be edited (or the PDF file to be
viewed); if a separate chartfile is needed, vprerex(1) must be invoked wth two arguments on the command line.
If the mouse hovers over a hyperlink in the PDF viewing window, the cursor shape will change to a pointing finger and a tooltip will dis-
play the URI. If the PDF file displayed contains a chart generated using prerex.sty(7) and the background coordinate grid has been
enabled, left-clicking the mouse on a course box, arrow mid-point, or background point will load the relevant coordinates into the X clip-
board. The cursor shape changes to a plus-sign to indicate successful capture of the coordinates. Middle-clicking the mouse at the pre-
rex(1) command-line will then paste those coordinates into a command being composed. If the chart file is regenerated, the updated docu-
ment will be re-loaded.
DEPENDENCIES
vprerex is based on the Qt-4 library. It calls xterm(1) and prerex(1) for the editing window and uses poppler-qt4 for rendering PDF files.
AUTHOR
R. D. Tennent (rdt@cs.queensu.ca), adapted from David Boddie's PDFviewer, described in the QT Quarterly: http://doc.troll-
tech.com/qq/QtQuarterly27.pdf.
SEE ALSO prerex(1), prerex(5), prerex.sty(7), and xterm(1).
vprerex-6.2 2011-10-28 VPREREX(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
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)