The 'Viewer' Page

The 'Viewer' page allows you to define the application, to use to view the files, generated by this profile.

The meanings of the several controls are:

'Path of executable'
The full path of the application to use to view the files, generated by this profile.
'View project's output'
Command to execute, to view the project's output.

This command will be executed, if you choose the menu item 'Build|View Output' and there is no document opened in TeXnicCenter.

This command can be either a command line or a DDE-command (see below)

'Forward Search'
Command to execute, to view the paragraph in the output, belonging to the paragraph in the source code in TeXnicCenter, the text cursor is currently placed on.

This command will be executed, if you choose the menu item 'Build|View Output' and there is a document opened in TeXnicCenter.

This command can be either a command line or a DDE-command (see below)

'Close document before running (La)TeX'
Command to execute, to close a previously generated output file in the viewer, before regenerating it by choosing 'Build|Build Output'.

This command will be executed, if you choose the menu item 'Build|Build Output' directly before the build process will be started. You have only to specify this command, when using a viewer, which opens the files exclusively, which means, that no application can access the output file with write access, while opened in the viewer (i.e. Adobe AcrobatReader works that way). If LaTeX would try to regenerate this output, it would fail, because it cannot overwrite the allready existing file. If you specify a command here, the file will be closed in the viewer, before LaTeX will be executed.

This command can be either a command line or a DDE-command (see below)

All the commands on this page can be normal command lines or DDE commands.

A normal command line will be passed to the application, when starting it, like you would do it, when calling it from a command line like the dos box.

DDE means "Dynamic Data Exchange", which is an old windows mechanism for interprocess communication (IPC) - once the viewer has been started, TeXnicCenter can communicate with the running instance of the viewer by sending im DDE commands. Not every application supports DDE commands. To get information about the DDE commands supported by an application, take a look in the application's manual. A good example for a viewer, supporting DDE is the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The meanings of the fields of a command are:

'Command line argument'
Choose to specify a normal command line.
'DDE command'
Choose to specify a DDE command.
'Command'
Enter the command line to pass to the executable here, if you have choosen the 'Command line argument' option or enter the DDE command to send to the viewer, if you have choosen the 'DDE command' option.

You can use place holders to specify dynamic arguments.

'Server' (only available for 'DDE command')
Specify the server name to use to connect to the DDE server (the viewer). Take a look into your viewer's manual to get this information.
'Topic' (only available for 'DDE command')
Specify the DDE topic, the DDE command belongs to. Take a look into your viewer's manual to get this information.

Most applications are expecting the topic "System" here.