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I think it is possible to make the reader and the PDF files part of the
installation of the software that the PDF is being included with.
-----Original Message-----
From: Grant, Christopher [mailto:CGrant -at- glhec -dot- org]
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 1:51 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: PDFs/self-extracting .exe
Greetings -
I think that Graham wants the PDF file to be usable (viewable, that is) on a
computer which does not have Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader on it.
Sort of like building the viewer into the PDF file itself. AFAIK, this is
not possible - you *must* have Acrobat or Acrobat Reader or some other
PDF-capable viewer installed on the machine to look at a PDF.
You could bundle the PDF and Acrobat Reader into a self-executing ZIP as
Jennifer suggests (the reader is, I believe, freely available) and that
might do the trick for you. I believe that when making a self-executable
you can also specify a program to run within the archive upon extraction, so
you could have it self-extract and then run Acrobat Reader automatically.
Hope this helps!
-Chris Grant
TWIT
cgrant -at- glhec -dot- org
>Hi Graham,
>
>Most zip utilities can create a self-extracting executable that doesn't
>require the zip software for extraction. Is that what you need?
>
>With WinZip:
>
> - Create a WinZip archive (zip file) with the PDF file
> - Choose Make .Exe File from the Actions menu of WinZip
>
>HTH,
>
>- Jennifer Banks
>> Dear everybody,
>>
>> Here's a question for which I don't hold out much hope of a positive
>> reply but I'll give it a shot anyway.
>>
>> Is there any way of making a PDF file auto-executable, as with a zipped
>> file which is delivered to a remote site and doesn't have to have the
>> Zip software to extract it.
>>
>> Many thanks in advance,
>>
>> Graham Bridge
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