Hack 17 Create Windows Shortcuts to Local PDF Pages

Pinpoint and organize the essential data in your local PDF collection.

PDF files can hold so much information, yet Acrobat provides no convenient way to reference an individual PDF page outside of Acrobat. This makes it harder to organize a collection. To solve this problem, I developed an Acrobat plug-in that can create Windows shortcuts that open specific PDF pages. However, it works only after you add some special Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) messages to the PDF Open action. Use this plug-in to create Windows shortcuts to the PDF pages, sections, or chapters most useful to you. Name these shortcuts and organize them in folders just like Internet shortcuts.

Adobe Reader users should use [Hack #15] instead of this hack.

2.4.1 Configure the Shell to Open PDF to a Given Page

First, we must have Acrobat open PDF files to a particular page, when a page number is given. The Windows shell is responsible for opening Acrobat when you double-click a PDF file or shortcut. You can view and edit this association from the Windows Explorer File Manager.

In the Windows File Explorer menu, select Tools Folder Options . . . and click the File Types tab. Select the Adobe Acrobat Document (PDF) file type and click the Advanced button (Windows XP and 2000) or the Edit . . . button (Windows 98). Double-click the Open action to change its configuration.

Now you should be looking at the Edit Action dialog for the Adobe Acrobat Document file type. Check the Use DDE checkbox and then add/change the DDE fields like so:

[DocOpen("%1")] [DocGoTo("%1",%2=0)]

acroview

control

This DDE message tells Acrobat to open the PDF file given in the first argument (%1) and then to go to the page given in the second argument (%2). If %2 is not given, Acrobat opens the PDF to the first page (page zero).

Sometimes the Application field is filled with a different name. It must be acroview for our DDE message to work properly.

When you are done, the PDF Open action should look like Figure 2-2.

Figure 2-2. Adding an Acrobat command to the PDF Open action using DDE

Click OK, OK, and Close, and you are done.

This could change how you open PDF files from the command line. You will need to supply the full path to the PDF file, even if the PDF file is in your current directory. So, for example, instead of typing AcroRd32 mydoc.pdf you would need to type AcroRd32 C:\myfolder\mydoc.pdf.

2.4.2 Acrobat Shortcuts Plug-In

Follow the directions in [Hack #16] to install and use our Shortcuts Acrobat plug-in. Internet shortcuts are a little different from shortcuts to local files, but for our purposes they behave the same way.

2.4.3 Hacking the Hack

Acrobat and Reader recognize more than 30 DDE messages. They are documented in the Acrobat Interapplication Communication Reference, which comes with the Acrobat SDK [Hack #98] . Its filename is IACReference.pdf. Use DDE messages to program your own Acrobat context menu actions.

Also, look into the PDF Open Parameters document from Adobe, which you can find at http://partners.adobe.com/asn/acrobat/sdk/public/docs/PDFOpenParams.pdf.