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Using Preview.app as a TeX/LaTeX previewer
Authored by: johnblommers on Mar 19, '04 01:09:18PM
"Too bad Preview.app cannot be scripted."

Indeed.

Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Professional cannot be scripted either.

Think about it. If you have an accursed DRM'd document that lets you view-only (no copy, no print, no save as), how are you going to exercise your fair use rights under the US Copyright Act? The DMCA took that away and lets content creators limit what you can do with your paid-for content.

And that is supported by both Adobe and by Apple and THAT is why Preview cannot be scripted.

BTW as an author of several books, I understand the viewpoint of the content creators. I understand it, I did not say I necessarily agree with it.

- John

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Using Preview.app as a TeX/LaTeX previewer
Authored by: ByronEllis on Mar 19, '04 01:26:52PM

Um, what does DRM have to do with whether or not Preview.app should be scriptable?



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Using Preview.app as a TeX/LaTeX previewer
Authored by: bynkii on Mar 21, '04 10:51:16AM

actually, Acrobat Professional is highly scriptable. It has both Javascript and AppleScript implementations. The AppleScript dictionary is so broken as to be useless, but it's there.

The Javascript implementation in Acrobat is top-flight though, and you can do more with Javascript than you can with the plugin APIs.

Acrobat is a production tool. For it to be completely unautomatable would be stupid.

Almost as stupid as Preview not being scriptable.

john



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