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Re: Runinng an .exe or .bat file from within a PDF doc?

Subject: Re: Runinng an .exe or .bat file from within a PDF doc?
From: Lou Quillio <public -at- quillio -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 18:17:03 -0400


Yves Barbion wrote:

I would like to include a clickable graphic in my PDF document and add a
link to a .exe or .bat file. The idea is that the user clicks on the
graphic and that a specific file (.key) is copied to a specific folder.

As far as I know, you can use scripting only to manipulate forms controls within the current PDF -- not to reach into the file system or launch separate processes. Some quick Googling seems to bear this out.

Which is good, real good. Imagine PDFs kicking around that, by the innocuous business of following a link, would start deleting and writing files (that's what "moving" is) with no way of verifying that the files exist, or that the ones they act upon are the exact ones the 'PDF control' anticipates. I may have files with the same names that serve another purpose, or a directory structure the 'PDF control' doesn't know about but will "fix" for me. Heck, how's the PDF even know what OS I use? How would it sanity check its own actions, and provide meaningful feedback?

I guess it seems convenient, but in my book such capability is supah-bad. The lowly Acrobat Reader given write and execute permissions? Not on OS X or Linux, that's for sure. Maybe on Windows, where security nightmares pass for Sominex. Zzzzzzzz ...

But if somebody knows how to do this, please speak up so I can lock "helpful" PDFs out of my filesystem -- and save a little napalm for whomever distributes them.

LQ

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Runinng an .exe or .bat file from within a PDF doc?: From: Yves Barbion

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