PDF Documents Storage

Panorama X
1

Is there anyway to store a PDF file in a Pan X database? Or even link to it on my hard drive? Thanks

Doug Canning

2

Yes to the second part of the question. You can use the filecatalog statement / function to import the contents of a folder with PDF files as file paths into Panorama X, and you can then the openanything statement to open that path.

3

…and, if it’s useful for your purposes you can preview the PDF from within your PanX database in a web browser object. Prefix the file path with"file://" to view it in the browser. I like to add code to my browser object to open the file in Preview if the user double clicks on the web object, using “openanything” as per KJM’s reply.

4

Thanks, will give it a go

5

One more consideration, you can drag a PDF from the Desktop to an active cell or text editor and Panorama will enter the full file path. It sure makes it easy and eliminates typos or other errors.

6

I too use the openanything statement to open a specific file but I add an enhancement.

openanything PATH

The data is the entire path of the document (it does not have to be a pdf document) and I include an option such that if the option key is depressed, I clip or trim the last part of the path with a simple text funnel of the actual document path.

This then will open the Folder instead of the document in the folder.
Code
;---------Named “.RetrieveDocument”
if info(“modifiers”) contains “Option”
;then-this opens the folder since I have
;trimmed off the document name
openanything «Path»[1,“-/”]
else
;this opens the actual document
openanything «Path»
endif
End Code
That James Cook “trick” for getting the path is fantastic. What a time saver and error mitigator.

I can’t seem to indent the actual code. Sorry.

7

Your trick will work, but instead I would suggest this:

if info("modifiers") contains "option"
    revealinfinder Path
else
    openanything Path
endif

This will not only open the folder in the Finder, but select the document in that folder.

Just put 4 spaces in front of each line. If the code is already in a Panorama procedure, you can simply select the code, then choose Source>Copy Indented Code.