Opening a PDF searching for a Topic

If You are using Acrobat 7 there is a paper which list all opening parameters that can be set.

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/PDFOpenParameters.pdf

 

Look at Adobe's IACReference.PDF. You can use the DDE method DocGoToNameDest to go to a named destination, or DocGoTo to go to a specified page. Both work with Reader as far back as version 4, and up to the latest version. Note that not all of the methods will work with Reader.

DDE isn't supported by VBScript. Here's a simple examle in "C". Note that it hasn't been fully tested. A .zip with source and .exe is here:

http://www.geocities.com/sea_sbs/files/pdfc.zip

usage examples:

pdfc -p 33 e:\temp\mypdf.pdf (go to page 33 of doc)

pdfc -d "compute" e:\temp\mypdf.pdf (go to named dest)

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#include <windows.h>
#include <ddeml.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>


// Determine if Acrobat or Reader is running
BOOL isAdobeRunning()
{
    HWND hWndAdobe=0;

    // Find window with classname "AcobeAcrobat"
    hWndAdobe = FindWindow("AdobeAcrobat", NULL);
    return(hWndAdobe ? TRUE : FALSE);
}

void usage(char *p)
{
    printf("usage:\t%s [options] [drive:]<pdfpath>\n", p);
     printf("options:\n");
    printf("\t-d destination (go to named dest. Surround in quotes if spaces embedded)\n");
    printf("\t-p page : (go to page)\n");
     exit(0);
}

// Callback function for DDE messages
HDDEDATA CALLBACK DDECallback(     UINT wType,
                    UINT wFmt,
                    HCONV hConv,
                    HSZ hsz1,
                    HSZ hsz2,
                    HDDEDATA hDDEData,
                    DWORD dwData1,
                    DWORD dwData2)
{
     switch (wType) {

     default:
          return NULL;
          break;
     }
}


// Send a DDE execute request to Acrobat/Reader
static BOOL SendExecCmd(LPSTR lpszCmd)
{
     DWORD dwDDEInst = 0;
     UINT ui;
     HSZ hszApplication;
     HSZ hszTopic;
     HCONV hConv;
     HDDEDATA hExecData;

     // Initialize DDEML
     ui = DdeInitialize(&dwDDEInst,
               DDECallback,
               CBF_FAIL_ALLSVRXACTIONS,
               0l);

     if (ui != DMLERR_NO_ERROR) {
          return FALSE;
     }

     // Initiate a conversation with the acroview application
     // on the control topic.
     hszApplication = DdeCreateStringHandle(     dwDDEInst,
                              "acroview",
                              CP_WINANSI);

     hszTopic = DdeCreateStringHandle(dwDDEInst,
                         "control",
                         CP_WINANSI);

     hConv = DdeConnect(dwDDEInst,
               hszApplication,
               hszTopic,
               NULL);

     // Free the HSZ now
     DdeFreeStringHandle(dwDDEInst, hszApplication);
     DdeFreeStringHandle(dwDDEInst, hszTopic);

     if (!hConv) {
          return FALSE;
     }

     // Create a data handle for the exec string
     hExecData = DdeCreateDataHandle(dwDDEInst,
                         lpszCmd,
                         lstrlen(lpszCmd)+1,
                         0,
                         NULL,
                         0,
                         0);

     // Send the execute request
     DdeClientTransaction(     (void FAR *)hExecData,
                    (DWORD)-1,
                    hConv,
                    NULL,
                    0,
                    XTYP_EXECUTE,
               10000, // ms timeout
                    NULL);

     // Done with the conversation now.
     DdeDisconnect(hConv);

     // Done with DDEML
     DdeUninitialize(dwDDEInst);

     return TRUE;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
     char szFile[MAX_PATH];
     char szPath[MAX_PATH];
    char cmd[MAX_PATH*2];
    char dest[MAX_PATH];
     char *p;
    int page=0;
     int i;

    dest[0] = '\0';

    if (argc < 2)
     {
          usage(argv[0]);
          return 0;
     }

     for(i=1;i<argc;i++)
     {
          p = argv;

          if(*p == '-')
          {
               if(++i >= argc)
                    usage(argv[0]);

               switch (*(++p)) {
               case 'p' :
                         p = argv;
                         if(!isdigit(*p)) {
                        printf("Invalid Page: %s\n", p);
                         }
                         else {
                        page = atoi(p);
                        printf("Page: %ld\n", page);
                         }

                         continue;
               case 'd' :
                         p = argv;
                    strcpy(dest, p);
                    printf("Dest: %s\n", dest);

                         continue;
               default:
                    continue;
            }
        }

        // Construct full path to file
        strcpy(szPath, argv);

        // Get the path to the executable
        ZeroMemory (szFile, MAX_PATH);
        FindExecutable(szPath, NULL, szFile);
        if (!szFile[0])
        {
            printf("'%s' not found or Adobe Acrobat or Reader not installed.\n", szPath);
            continue;
        }

        // Make sure it's a PDF file
        p = strrchr(szPath,'.');
        if(p==NULL)
        {
            printf("Not a PDF file: '%s'\n", szPath);
            return(1);
        }

        if( stricmp(p,".pdf")!=0)
        {
            printf("Not a PDF file: '%s'\n", szPath);
            return(1);
        }

        // Open Reader
        ShellExecute(NULL,"open",szFile,NULL,NULL,SW_NORMAL);

        Sleep(3000);

        if(!isAdobeRunning())
            Sleep(3000);

        // Send the DocOpen DDE command
        sprintf(cmd,"[DocOpen(\"%s\")]", szPath);
        printf("cmd: %s\n", cmd);
        SendExecCmd(cmd);

        // Send the Page or NamedDest DDE command
        if(page > 0) {
            sprintf(cmd,"[DocGoTo(\"%s\",%ld)]", szPath, page);
            printf("cmd: %s\n", cmd);
            SendExecCmd(cmd);
        }
        else if(strlen(dest)) {
            sprintf(cmd,"[DocGoToNameDest(\"%s\",\"%s\")]", szPath, dest);
            printf("cmd: %s\n", cmd);
            SendExecCmd(cmd);
        }
    }

    return(0);
}

Jose,

1. The "missing index" warning happens when you open the document manually with Reader, too. Nothing to do with pdfc.exe.

2. Are there any Named Destinations in this document? Going to a Named Dest is not the same thing as searching...

Jose,

This little guy should do what you want:

http://www.geocities.com/sea_sbs/files/pdfsrch.zip

Searches recursively through all bookmarks and children to match a search term from commandline:

pdfsrch "c:\my pdfs\IACReference.pdf" "link annotation"

Will do case-insensitive search and match "Link Annotation" bookmark, then open to its reference page (31) in IACReference.pdf in Reader.

Requires the DLL version of QuickPDF in your path.

OK, download it again. I changed from a simple "instr" match to a regex match, so you will have the power of regular expression pattern matching to specify exactly how to search.

For the rules of this particular regex engine, search for "REGEXPR" here:

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/help/pbcc/index.htm

Try these two example searches to see the difference:

pdfsrch cobol8591.pdf compute
pdfsrch cobol8951.pdf "\bcompute\b"

The pattern can get a lot more complex than this simple example. Make sure to enclose the regex pattern in quotes, or the CMD shell may try to interpret them.