PDF Preview Issues

[cwfrizzell]

I just purchased via BitsDuJour.

DeskRule is very hit-and-miss with PDF previews. It won't preview many PDFs at all. Those it will preview are done inconsistently (sometimes it appears, sometimes it doesn't). Using Win7 (32-bit), latest version of DeskRule and have Adobe Reader XI installed.

In addition, I use Copernic Desktop Search, which consistently produces a basic PDF preview (text, no graphics) and am trialing Lookeen Desktop Search, which consistently produces a very good text/image PDF preview. In fact, I tested identical searches in all programs, to include attempting to preview the same PDF. Only DeskRule is having trouble.

I tried installing a prior version PDF filter, as listed on your site, but with no luck.

Please advise.

[nikos]

for best all round results with PDF documents, including preview, I recommend ditching adobe reader for PDF Xchange viewer, see here for more information
www.zabkat.com/x2plugins.htm

[cwfrizzell]

Nikos, thanks for the quick response. I uninstalled Adobe Reader and installed PDF Xchange Viewer. No difference whatsoever; can't see a single PDF in the viewer pane. Very frustrating.

[nikos]

perhaps you need to reboot to apply the changes? see if PDF preview works in windows explorer (or xplorer2 if you have it installed)

[cwfrizzell]

I had rebooted, but didn't think to check Windows Explorer. I don't own xplorer2 (but will purchase next time it pops up on BitsDuJour...).

PDF preview wasn't working in Windows Explorer either. Reinstalled PDF Xchange Viewer and now see appropriate previews.

Now just need to get more acquainted with DeskRule.

[cwfrizzell]

More investigation showed a variation in DeskRules operation. Perhaps it's intentional...

If simply doing a search by name, preview pane will show the PDF with proper images and formatting. However, when searching by name AND/OR content, the preview shows only text without formatting or images, except where the content search parameter is located in the file (shown as bold).

Just want to validate this is by design.

[nikos]

this is by design but there are qualifications. When deskrule matches text in contents, it will try to show the hit. That's why you get the plain text mode. However when the file was found quickly through the windows search index, deskrule doesn't really know where the text is found, so it loads just the first few bytes and hopes for the best. To improve your chances that you'll see the keyword in the previewer, just increase the "preview length" from options