Adobe Reader Command Line Reference

Question

Is there an official command line link for different versions of Adobe (formerly Acrobat) Reader?

I did not find anything on Adobe Developer Connection .

I especially want:

• Run Reader and open the file
• Open the file at a specific position (page)
• Close Reader (or single file)

Answer 1

You can find something about this in the Adobe Developer FAQ . (This is a PDF document, not a web page, which I believe is not surprising in this particular case.)

Frequently asked questions about using command line switches are not supported.

To open a file, follow these steps:

AcroRd32.exe <filename> 

The following switches are available:

• /n - Launch a new instance of Reader, even if it is already open.
• /s - Do not show splash screen
• /o - Do not show open file dialog
• /h - Open as minimized window
• /p <filename> - Open and go directly to the print dialog
• /t <filename> <printername> <drivername> <portname> - Print the file with the specified printer.

Answer 2

Also found this link in pdf format:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_open_parameters.pdf

Answer 3

I found this:

http://www.robvanderwoude.com/commandlineswitches.php#Acrobat

Open the PDF file with the active navigation bar, zoom out to 50%, and find and select the word "package":

 AcroRd32.exe /A "zoom=50&navpanes=1=OpenActions&search=batch" PdfFile 

Answer 4

To open a PDF on page 100, follow these steps:

 <path to Adobe Reader> /A "page=100" "<Path To PDF file>" 

If you need more than one argument, highlight them with &

I use the following in a batch file to open the book that I am reading on the page I was on.

 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 10.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe /A "page=149&pagemode=none" "D:\books\MCTS(70-562) ASP.Net 3.5 Development.pdf" 

The best command line argument list for Adobe Reader I've found is here. http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/PDFOpenParameters.pdf

This is for version 7, but all the arguments I tried worked.

As for closing the file, I think you will need to use the SDK, or if you open the file from the code, you can close the file from the code as soon as you are done with it.

Answer 5

Call this after returning the print job:

 oShell.AppActivate "Adobe Reader" oShell.SendKeys "%FX"