Set Viewer Preferences

This command configures how a PDF is displayed on the screen and shall be printed.

Define whether you want to display a toolbar, a menubar or if you want your document to be centered among others.

Define a default print page range, your paper handling options and other parameters for printing.

Have a look at some examples.

Usage

pdfcpu viewerpref set inFile (inFileJSON | JSONstring)

Common Flags

name	description	values
v(erbose)	turn on logging
vv	verbose logging
q(uiet)	quiet mode
-o(ffline)	disable http traffic
c(onf)	config dir	$path, disable
opw	owner password
upw	user password
u(nit)	display unit	po(ints),in(ches),cm,mm

Arguments

name	description	required
inFile	PDF input file	yes
inFileJSON	JSON input file or	yes
JSONstring	JSON string containing viewing preferences	yes

Preference Parameters

name	description	default
HideToolbar	Hide tool bars when the document is active	false
HideMenubar	Hide the menu bar when the document is active	false
HideWindowUI	Hide user interface elements in the document’s window	false
FitWindow	Resize the document’s window to fit the size of the first displayed page	false
CenterWindow	Position the document’s window in the centre of the screen	false
DisplayDocTitle	Display the document title	false
NonFullScreenPageMode	How to display the document on exiting full-screen mode	UseNone
Direction	The predominant logical content order for text	L2R
ViewArea	Viewing Page boundary for screen	CropBox
ViewClip	Clipping page boundary for screen	CropBox
PrintArea	Rendering Page boundary for printing	CropBox
PrintClip	Clipping page boundary for printing	CropBox
Duplex	Paper handling option	-
PickTrayByPDFSize	Whether the PDF page size shall be used to select the input paper tray	-
PrintPageRange	The page numbers used to initialize the print dialogue box when the file is printed (since PDF 1.7). The array shall contain an even number of integers to be interpreted in pairs, with each pair specifying the first and last pages in a sub-range of pages to be printed. The first page of the PDF file shall be denoted by 1.	-
NumCopies	The number of copies that shall be printed when the print dialog is opened for this file (since PDF 1.7).	-
Enforce	Array of names of Viewer preference settings that shall be enforced by PDF processors and that shall not be overridden by subsequent selections in the application user interface (since PDF 2.0) - possible value: PrintScaling	-

DisplayDocTitle

value	description
true	The window’s title bar should display the document title taken from the dc:title element of the XMP metadata stream
false	The title bar should display the name of the PDF file containing the document

NonFullScreenPageMode

value	description
UseNone	Neither document outline nor thumbnail images visible (=default)
UseOutlines	Document outline visible
UseThumbs	Thumbnail images visible
UseOC	Optional content group panel visible

Direction

value	description
L2R	Left to right
R2L	Right to left (including vertical writing systems, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean)

View/Print Area/Clip

Since PDF 1.4, deprecated as of PDF 2.0

Values: The PDF page boundaries (boxes)

parameter	description
ViewArea	The name of the page boundary representing the area of a page that shall be displayed when viewing the document on the screen.
ViewClip	The name of the page boundary to which the contents of a page shall be clipped when viewing the document on the screen.
PrintArea	The name of the page boundary representing the area of a page that shall be rendered when printing the document.
PrintClip	The name of the page boundary to which the contents of a page shall be clipped when printing the document.

Duplex

The paper handling option that shall be used when printing the file from the print dialogue (since PDF 1.7)

value	description
Simplex	Print single-sided
DuplexFlipShortEdge	Duplex and flip on the short edge of the sheet
DuplexFlipLongEdge	Duplex and flip on the long edge of the sheet

Examples

Generally the viewer preferences are set via JSON.

Eg. Set viewer preferences via JSON string (case agnostic):

$ pdfcpu viewerpref set test.pdf "{\"HideMenuBar\": true, \"CenterWindow\": true}"

Set printer preferences (which are part of the viewer preferences) via JSON string (case agnostic):

$ pdfcpu viewerpref set test.pdf "{\"duplex\": \"duplexFlipShortEdge\", \"printPageRange\": [1, 4, 10, 12], \"NumCopies\": 3}"

Set viewer preferences via JSON file:

$ cat viewerpref.json
{
    "viewerPreferences": {
        "HideToolBar": true,
        "HideMenuBar": false,
        "HideWindowUI": false,
        "FitWindow": true,
        "CenterWindow": true,
        "DisplayDocTitle": true,
        "NonFullScreenPageMode": "UseThumbs",
        "Direction": "R2L",
        "Duplex": "Simplex",
        "PickTrayByPDFSize": false,
        "PrintPageRange": [
            1, 4,
            10, 20
        ],
        "NumCopies": 3,
        "Enforce": [
            "PrintScaling"
        ]
    }
}

$ pdfcpu viewerpref set test.pdf viewerpref.json