SUGGESTION: Specify PDF Reader for Zoom

[Marteco]

Here is a situation that I think more and more computer users will face as time goes on.

With each incarnation of the Adobe reader it seems to get bigger and slower, with little added benefit to the user.

In consequence, word is spreading rapidly about alternative readers such as Foxit, which is not only small and fast, but offers editing features that users of the Adobe reader can only dream about.

I had long ago dumped Adobe in favor of Foxit and have been very happy with the change. It wasn't until I needed a custom search engine and discovered the very excellent Zoom, that I was forced to re-adopt The Great Red whale as a reader.

It's all to do with jumping to the search word in a PDF. What all the alternative readers really need is an Adobe compatibility mode for commandline/URL options, but the developers all seem to want to go their own proprietary way and ignore compatibility issues.

Anyway, here's a suggestion for Zoom that would allow us to defeat the problem without giving up our favorite reader for normal day-to-day use.

It would be an ideal situation to be able to specify that Zoom uses the Adobe reader if installed, regardless of what the default reader might be. It's a fairly common-sense feature when you consider that Zoom is only fully functional with the Adobe reader, and it's wrong to assume that Adobe is the only reader on the planet, when it's not even the best.

What are the chances, guys?

[David]

While the Adobe reader and writer have a bunch of problems. I have personally I have found the new versions of Adobe reader to be faster than the old ones. Adobe also claimed V7 was actually 50% faster than V6 on their web site. But in any case this isn't really a forum for bashing Adobe regardless of how bad or good they are.

If the Foxit people want to conform to the defacto PDF standards created by Adobe, well and good. If they don't, there is nothing we can do about it.

You also misunderstand the way PDF files are displayed. If you have multiple applications capable of displaying PDF files, a web page can not control which of these applications are actually used. It is under user control, NOT web site control.

[Ray]

It's a fairly common-sense feature when you consider that Zoom is only fully functional with the Adobe reader, and it's wrong to assume that Adobe is the only reader on the planet, when it's not even the best.

It doesn't assume this. Zoom (or any web page for that matter) does not have any control over what reader is used for PDF files. This is dependent on what the user has setup on their computer.

In regards to the "highlight and locate matched words within PDF files" feature, this is simply passing parameters in the way specified by Adobe to the user's browser. So that when Adobe's reader opens the file, it recognizes this, and performs this function. If Foxit does not support this feature, then it won't work. Again, stressing that this is not anything we have any control over.

A user's computer may even be setup incorrectly to open PDF files in something inappropriate such as Notepad, but we still have no control over this or have any ability to force a different application to launch.