xpdf - Portable Document Format (PDF) file viewer for X (version 3.01)

xpdf [options] [PDF-file [page | +dest]] zxpdf [options] [PDF-file [page | +dest]]

Xpdf is a viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. (These are also sometimes also called 'Acrobat' files, from the name of Adobe's PDF software.) Xpdf runs under the X Window System on UNIX, VMS, and OS/2.

To run xpdf, simply type:

xpdf file.pdf

where file.pdf is your PDF file. The file name can be followed by a number specifying the page which should be displayed first, e.g.:

xpdf file.pdf 18

You can also give a named destination, prefixed with '+' in place of the page number. (This is only useful with PDF files that provide named destination targets.)

You can also start xpdf without opening any files:

xpdf

Compressed files (gz and bz2) may be viewed using the command:

zxpdf file.pdf.gz

Xpdf reads a configuration file at startup. It first tries to find the user's private config file, ~/.xpdfrc. If that doesn't exist, it looks for a system-wide config file, /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc. See the xpdfrc(5) man page for details.

Many of the following options can be set with configuration file commands or X resources. These are listed in square brackets with the description of the corresponding command line option.

-g geometry

Set the initial window geometry. (-geometry is equivalent.) [X resource: xpdf.geometry]

-title title

Set the window title. By default, the title will be "xpdf: foo.pdf". [X resource: xpdf.title]

-cmap

Install a private colormap. This is ignored on TrueColor visuals. [X resource: xpdf.installCmap]

-rgb number

Set the size of largest RGB cube xpdf will try to allocate. The default is 5 (for a 5x5x5 cube); set to a smaller number to conserve color table entries. This is ignored with private colormaps and on TrueColor visuals. [X resource: xpdf.rgbCubeSize]

-rv

Set reverse video mode. This reverses the colors of everything except images. It may not always produce great results for PDF files which do weird things with color. This also causes the paper color to default to black. [X resource: xpdf.reverseVideo]

-papercolor color

Set the "paper color", i.e., the background of the page display. This will not work too well with PDF files that do things like filling in white behind the text. [X resource: xpdf.paperColor]

-mattecolor color

Set the matte color, i.e., the color used for background outside the actual page area. [X resource: xpdf.matteColor]

-z zoom

Set the initial zoom factor. A number specifies a zoom percentage, where 100 means 72 dpi.You may also specify 'page', to fit the page to the window size, or 'width', to fit the page width to the window width. [config file: initialZoom; or X resource: xpdf.initialZoom]

-cont

Start in continuous view mode, i.e., with one vertical scroll bar for the whole document. [config file: continuousView]

-t1lib yes | no

Enable or disable t1lib (a Type 1 font rasterizer). This defaults to "yes". [config file: enableT1lib]

-freetype yes | no

Enable or disable FreeType (a TrueType / Type 1 font rasterizer). This defaults to "yes". [config file: enableFreeType]

-aa yes | no

Enable or disable font anti-aliasing. This defaults to "yes". [config file: antialias]

-ps PS-file

Set the default file name for PostScript output (i.e., the name which will appear in the print dialog). This can also be of the form [config file: psFile]

-paper size

Set the paper size to one of "letter", "legal", "A4", or "A3". This can also be set to "match", which will set the paper size to match the size specified in the PDF file. [config file: psPaperSize]

-paperw size

Set the paper width, in points. [config file: psPaperSize]

-paperh size

Set the paper height, in points. [config file: psPaperSize]

-level1

Generate Level 1 PostScript. The resulting PostScript files will be significantly larger (if they contain images), but will print on Level 1 printers. This also converts all images to black and white. [config file: psLevel]

-enc encoding-name

Sets the encoding to use for text output. The encoding-name must be defined with the unicodeMap command (see xpdfrc(5)). This defaults to "Latin1" (which is a built-in encoding). [config file: textEncoding]

-eol unix | dos | mac

Sets the end-of-line convention to use for text output. [config file: textEOL]

-opw password

Specify the owner password for the PDF file. Providing this will bypass all security restrictions.

-upw password

Specify the user password for the PDF file.

-fullscreen

Open xpdf in a full-screen mode, useful for presentations. You may also want to specify '-bg black' (or similar) with this. (There is currently no way to switch between window and full-screen modes on the fly.)

-remote name

Start/contact xpdf remote server with specified name (see the REMOTE SERVER MODE section below).

-reload

Reload xpdf remote server window (with -remote only).

-raise

Raise xpdf remote server window (with -remote only).

-quit

Kill xpdf remote server (with -remote only).

-cmd

Print commands as they're executed (useful for debugging). [config file: printCommands]

-q

Don't print any messages or errors. [config file: errQuiet]

-cfg config-file

Read config-file in place of ~/.xpdfrc or the system-wide config file.

-v

Print copyright and version information.

-h

Print usage information. (-help and --help are equivalent.)

Several other standard X options and resources will work as expected:

-display display

[X resource: xpdf.display]

-fg color

(-foreground is equivalent.) [X resource: xpdf*Foreground]

-bg color

(-background is equivalent.) [X resource: xpdf*Background]

-font font

(-fn is equivalent.) [X resource: xpdf*fontList]

The color and font options only affect the user interface elements, not the PDF display (the 'paper').

The following X resources do not have command line option equivalents:

xpdf.viKeys

Enables the 'h', 'l', 'k' and 'j' keys for left, right, up, and down scrolling.

xpdf.toolTipEnable

Enables (if set to true) or disables (if set to false) the tool-tips on the toolbar buttons.

On-screen controls, at the bottom of the xpdf window

Menu

Outline

Text selection

Links

Panning

Key bindings

If you want to run xpdf automatically from netscape or mosaic (and probably other browsers) when you click on a link to a PDF file, you need to edit (or create) the files .mime.types and .mailcap in your home directory. In .mime.types add the line:

application/pdf pdf

In .mailcap add the lines:

# Use xpdf to view PDF files. application/pdf; xpdf -q %s

Make sure that xpdf is on your executable search path.

When you click on a URL link in a PDF file, xpdf will execute the command specified by the urlCommand config file option, replacing an occurrence of '%s' with the URL. For example, to call netscape with the URL, add this line to your config file:

urlCommand "netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'"

Xpdf can be started in remote server mode by specifying a server name (in addition to the file name and page number). For example:

xpdf -remote myServer file.pdf

If there is currently no xpdf running in server mode with the name 'myServer', a new xpdf window will be opened. If another command:

xpdf -remote myServer another.pdf 9

is issued, a new copy of xpdf will not be started. Instead, the first xpdf (the server) will load another.pdf and display page nine. If the file name is the same:

xpdf -remote myServer another.pdf 4

the xpdf server will simply display the specified page.

The -raise option tells the server to raise its window; it can be specified with or without a file name and page number.

The -quit option tells the server to close its window and exit.

The Xpdf tools use the following exit codes:

0

No error.

1

Error opening a PDF file.

2

Error opening an output file.

3

Error related to PDF permissions.

99

Other error.

The xpdf software and documentation are copyright 1996-2005 Glyph & Cog, LLC.

pdftops(1), pdftotext(1), pdfinfo(1), pdffonts(1), pdftoppm(1), pdfimages(1), xpdfrc(5)

http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/