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).