AcroExch.App with Adobe Reader

Report · Sep 14, 2010

If a computer only has Adobe Reader installed, can an application running on that computer interact with a pdf document via OLE? In particular, can an application on that computer use AcroExch.App and AcroExch.AVDoc objects?

Example code:

#import "acrobat.tlb" rename_namespace("ACROBAT"), auto_rename

ACROBAT::CAcroAppPtr app("AcroExch.App");

ACROBAT::CAcroAVDocPtr avDoc("AcroExch.AVDoc");
ACROBAT::CAcroPDDocPtr pdDoc;

avDoc->Open(TEXT("c:\\example.pdf"), TEXT(""));

pdDoc = avDoc->GetPDDoc();
pdDoc->OpenAVDoc("Title");

Currently creating app gives error: Invalid class string

Thanks!

Report · May 21, 2015

So can I use Reader DDE automation to access PDF comments/annotations using VBA?

Report · May 21, 2015

Did you read the documentation?

Report · May 21, 2015

The documentation is an overwhelming mess, anyway at the end I figured out what I need to know.

This is an example annotation saved into an FDF file:

<</C[1.0 1.0 1.0]/CL[91.8331 536.61 162.546 562.254 174.546 562.254]/Contents(COMMENT CONTENT)/CreationDate(D:20150521145021+02'00')/DA(1 0 0 rg /Helv 12 Tf)/DS(font: Helvetica,sans-serif 12.0pt; text-align:left; color:#FF0000 )/F 4/IT/FreeTextCallout/LE/OpenArrow/M(D:20150521151125+02'00')/NM(4dd302eb-83fd-4cf2-b4a6-f84c096ad11a)/Page 0/RC(<?xml version="1.0"?><body xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:xfa="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-data/1.0/" xfa:APIVersion="Acrobat:11.0.6" xfa:spec="2.0.2" style="font-size:12.0pt;text-align:left;color:#FF0000;font-weight:normal;font-style:norma\

l;font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;font-stretch:normal">commento</body>)/RD[82.7728 20.7243 0.5 0.5]/Rect[91.7732 534.719 283.046 571.953]/Subj(Callout)/Subtype/FreeText/T(ANNOTATION AUTHOR)/Type/Annot>>

More readable fashion:

<<

/C[1.0 1.0 1.0]

/CL[91.8331 536.61 162.546 562.254 174.546 562.254]

/Contents(COMMENT CONTENT)

/CreationDate(D:20150521145021+02'00')

/DA(1 0 0 rg /Helv 12 Tf)

/DS(font: Helvetica,sans-serif 12.0pt; text-align:left; color:#FF0000 )

/F 4

/IT/FreeTextCallout

/LE/OpenArrow

/M(D:20150521151125+02'00')

/NM(4dd302eb-83fd-4cf2-b4a6-f84c096ad11a)

/Page 0

/RC(<?xml version="1.0"?><body xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:xfa="http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-data/1.0/" xfa:APIVersion="Acrobat:11.0.6" xfa:spec="2.0.2" style="font-size:12.0pt;text-align:left;color:#FF0000;font-weight:normal;font-style:norma\

l;font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;font-stretch:normal">COMMENT CONTENT</body>)

/RD[82.7728 20.7243 0.5 0.5]

/Rect[91.7732 534.719 283.046 571.953]

/Subj(Callout)

/Subtype

/FreeText

/T(ANNOTATION AUTHOR)

/Type

/Annot

>>

"<<" and ">>" mark start/end of annotation

/C ? (who cares? 🙂 )

/CL = "CaLlout annotation", i.e. "a box with an arrow"; 6 numbers after /CL are coordinates of, in order:

arrow end
curve
arrow start

Coordinates are relative to lower-left angle of the page.

/Contents (obvious)

/CreationDate (obvious)

/DA Default Appearance

/DS Default Style

/F Flags (4 = nozoom)

/IT type of annotation: FreeText, FreeTextCallout,FreeTextTypewriter

/LE Style of the arrow

/NM is the unique id of the annotation (I don't need it for exporting).

/Page (obvious)

/RC containts a RiCh text version of the comment (i.e. supporting formatting)

/RD Textbox margins

/Rect Textbox containing the comment

/T Author of the annotation

So actually all I need to extract the list of comments and where the arrows point to is:

Find "<<"
Find "/CL" and get first two numbers inside [ ]
Find "/Contents" and read string inside ( )
Find "/page" and read number after space

Data taken from table 170 and 174 in _0_PDF32000_2008.

Report · May 21, 2015

I assumed you looks for the documentation of the DDE commands of Acrobat Reader.

Report · May 21, 2015

Yes... if it allows exporting comments.

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AcroExch.App with Adobe Reader

1 Correct answer