acrobat reader 7 active x object ?

[RichardC]

Arma
I also uninstalled old versions of Reader each time.

What I am saying is that there seem to be changes to Readers API in later versions. This will make your code unreadable in machines calling the wrong Reader version, including in compiled apps. I found that I needed to change my code to suit earlier Reader versions.

I have also found that Reader 6, 7 and 8 work interchangably, i.e. they sem to have the same API (custom actions) as each other, and apart from interface changes all will work without needing to re-code my app. However Reader 5 (and probably earlier versions) present a slightly different arrangement of custom actions in the event editor. So your 'Reader 6, 7 and 8' code becomes scrambled if you uninstall version 6, 7, or 8 and install Reader 5 and below.

One solution that I am trying is to detect the Reader version on users machines and use a jump to frame event to suit the result. However this means that different frames need to be made with different versions of Reader installed at the time, and I don't hold our a lot of hope for the reliability of the method.

If there is an extension developer who wants the money I am going to have to spend on a third party control please get in touch.

Rick

[Jeff]

Can you distribute the newest ActiveX with your application?

To open a PDF with the vitalize plug in you just need to use the open URL action and feed in the path to your PDF file.

[RichardC]

Hi jeff

Yes I had planned to distribute the latest version, and have official permission from Adobe to do this.

The problem is that users machines may in some circumstances default to an earlier version that they have installed. As I am selling to educational establishments in the UK I can assure you that they will have between them just about all versions of Reader.

It is because of the unpredictability of the activex's behaviour in different installation environments that I am looking for ways to display pdfs that don't rely on Adobe Reader.

Unfortunately the vitalize plug in uses the Adobe Reader activex preferred by the system in the same way that a browser does and so the same problems occur.

Rick

[arma]

Same problem here, with the added problem of a shared system which is very picky on what it will allow users to install as the computers are connect4ed through some sort of WAN, and the IT departement has some restrictions especially when using web browsers for installing plugins etc. so vitalize does not seem like an option for my app.

I have managed with some tweaking to get adobe 8 working but will have to go through nearly 200 frames to set them all to work on version 8 and then cannot rely on others machines to be using that version, so my app would not work on their machines.

When running my app with version 8 running the mouse over the toolbar in the opened pdf doc causes the screen to become corrupt and show the frame and text behind very messy.

I agree we need something that does not rely on adobe reader active-x to view pdf files.

Arma