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 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"
       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
       -openInNewInstance 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 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
       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 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).