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+\setupoutput[pdftex]
+
+\starttext
+
+
+\chapter{Controlling Acrobat Reader under X11}
+
+
+\centerline{Taco Hoekwater, taco(at)aanhet.net}
+
+\blank[3*line]
+
+Most people who use the Acrobat Reader to preview PDF files
+generated from \TeX\ documents will know that it is a hassle to
+deal with documents that need to be compiled while being viewed.
+
+The Linux version of Adobe's program simply does not notice that the
+PDF file has changed, and the Microsoft Windows version is even worse:
+it opens the PDF file using mandatory locking, making it absolutely
+impossible to recompile the document while it is still open in the
+Reader.
+
+Common practice using Acrobat Reader for viewing PDF's generated from
+pdf\TeX{} is therefore to cycle through these actions, either from
+the command line or from a script:
+
+\startitemize[n]
+\item edit the \TeX{} source
+\item compile to PDF
+\item view with Acrobat Reader
+\item close Acrobat Reader
+\stopitemize
+It follows that the Reader has to make a complete restart for each
+cycle, which is a slow operation. The alternative would be to run the
+Reader in the background and ask users to, after steps 1.~and 2.,
+manually close and reopen the document. That is not user-friendly, of
+course, and that's where \type{pdfopen} and \type{pdfclose}, described
+in this article, will be useful.
+
+Because the problem was much more severe under Windows, a few years ago
+Fabrice Popineau has written two small programs that use DDE calls to
+control the Reader from an external script or batchfile:
+\startitemize
+\item \type{pdfclose} to make the Reader close the file before the
+compilation starts
+\item \type{pdfopen} to re-open the file afterwards.
+\stopitemize
+The Linux X11 versions are command||line compatible with Fabrice's
+originals, but they do not function completely identically.
+
+\starttyping
+pdfclose --file <pdf file>
+\stoptyping
+This will close an X window with the name \type{<pdf file>} (for
+Acrobat Reader~5) or the name \type{Adobe Reader - <pdf file>}
+(for Adobe Reader~7).
+
+\starttyping
+pdfclose --all
+\stoptyping
+The Linux \type{pdfclose} command ignores the \type{-}\type{-all}
+command||line switch. The Windows version will close {\it only\/} the
+files that were opened through \type{pdfopen} when \type{-}\type{-all} is
+given, and this cannot easily be done under X. Ignoring the options
+seems wiser than unconditionally closing all open PDF documents.
+
+\starttyping
+pdfopen
+\stoptyping
+This command||line sends a ``go to previous document'' to an already
+existing, but empty, Adobe Reader window. There are perhaps some
+situations where this possibility might come in handy.
+
+
+\starttyping
+pdfopen --file <pdf file> [--page <pagenumber>]
+\stoptyping
+The Linux version silently ignores a given
+\type{-}\type{-page} option, because its behaviour would be near||impossible to
+predict. The program also reacts a bit differently to the
+\type{-}\type{-file} option: if the file is already open in the
+Reader, it will close and re||open the document.
+
+Normally, this is the command you want to use under Linux, because it
+immediately re||opesn the PDF file you have given as an argument in
+the Reader, using the same page \& view settings. The result is {\it
+almost\/} as if there was a refresh command in the Reader. {\it
+Almost\/}, because it only works if just this document is open for
+viewing, not if there are more files opened.
+
+\blank
+I've tested my programs with Acrobat Reader 5.0.10 under Mandrake
+Linux 10.1 using X.org 6.8.2, but the code is reasonably generic and
+should work out of the box using most X11R6 implementations.
+Version 0.5 compiles under X11R5 as well.
+
+Adobe Reader 7.0 is OK as long as you keep your PDF files maximized
+within the main Adobe Reader window (the PDF document's name has to
+appear in the window title). Also, you probably want to set the
+preference {\it Reopen documents to last viewed page\/} to ``All
+files''. You can find this setting in the {\it Startup\/} page of the
+preferences screen.
+
+\medskip
+\noindent
+Source and binaries of the programs can be downloaded from
+\hyphenatedurl{CTAN://support/xpdfopen/} or :
+\hyphenatedurl{http://tex.aanhet.net/pdfopen}
+
+\stoptext