View and control a PDF. Web Viewer or Container?

[mvoogt]

Here is my situation. I have a PDF that is about 100 pages. I want to create filemaker records as an index of this PDF. When someone clicks on the record it will jump the PDF to a specific page (of course the record has a page number associated with it).

 

Is there a way to do this with either storing the PDF in a container or accessing the PDF through a web viewer? I imagine there must be a way either with data URLs or perhaps an apple script. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Lee Smith]

I moved your topic from "FileMaker 13 General Discussion" to "Remote Container Fields” because the General Discussion topic is reserved for Version 13 questions.

[Raybaudi]

Is there a way to do this with either storing the PDF in a container or accessing the PDF through a web viewer?

Try this file, it access the pdf via a web viewer.

You can set the page to see and many other things.

Note that it creates a pdf file on your desktop: "pdf open parameters v9.pdf"

PDF.zip

[mvoogt]

Hi Raybaudi,

 

Thank you so much for your reply. I tried that and I think you are on the right track. However it doesn't seem to work and I believe it is an issue involving Safari on the mac.

 

I pasted the link that you generate in the file you attached into Chrome and it indeed does work. However in the web viewer (which my understanding uses Safari) does not work.

 

Any ideas?

 

The PDF is displayed, however the parameters such as page number and zoom have no effect in the web viewer.

[Raybaudi]

The PDF is displayed, however the parameters such as page number and zoom have no effect in the web viewer.

 

I have no problem on Windows with FMP 11,12 and 13.

[Raybaudi]

Indeed, there is something that does not work well.
I thought it was the version of Adobe Reader ( it was 9 and have upgraded it to 11 ), but instead now I think that is the fault of FileMaker 13.
With FMP 11 it works fine.

A partial workaround is going into Preview Mode and then back in Browse Mode.

So try to modify the reset script adding those two steps.

[MonkeybreadSoftware]

you could use MBS Plugin to split PDF into a lot of small PDFs, one for each page.

Put them in containers in records and jump to the record you need from the index.

[john renfrew]

Complete alternative idea

Use the page number as a parameter.

Use Scriptmaster and iText to add an on open to the file as you write it to a temp container field, export, reimport into a viewing container where it will indeed open to the page specified.

This would be a great thing to do on the server.

Not dependant on original file number of pages or having lots of repeating field repetitions as you would also have to disallow native navigation and still have a viewer field which loaded the previous or next repetition.

For added goodness you could read the number of pages in the file on the way in so you didn't try to go to page 100 of a 90 page file.

[maccer_de]

I found this thread yesterday, when searching the topic "WebViewer awareness of PDF open parameters".

I'm programming cross platform, and it is boring that this feature works very well with WebViewer on the Windows platform but not so on a Mac. Unlike it is assumed by some members here, this is neither a problem of the Mac nor it is a problem of Safari, since it works even pretty fine with Safari on a Mac.

So this is an issue of the Mac versions of FM Pro - tested with 10.x Adv, 12.x Adv and 13.x, which all failed. By this it is interesting, that with the correct syntax of the parameters, WebViewer will open the PDF but disregard the parameters. However using an incorrect syntax will block loading the PDF.

The only chance to overcome this problem is, that as many people as who read this, use the FileMaker feedback menu point and post this as an issue, since FM Inc. will empirically not react on a single request.