[pdftex] Acrobat and /Dur key

[Stephan Lehmke]

Martin Schröder wrote on Wed, 29 Aug 2001 10:43:42 +0200:
> 
> That's the registration number of the product. You get a customer
> number when you have registered the product (can be done online).

Thanks for the hint. This enabled me to experience a
very enlightening odyssey with adobe's customer support :-(

First, the registration did not work. The woman in the
registration office which I finally got on the phone 
told me that I didn't have a registration number, but
a license number. The difference is an additional three
digits. She didn't know how to remedy this situation...
Fine.

Secondly, I was connected to a guy in the technical
support department. He told me that if I was `scripting'
then the hotline was not responsible for me, they 
would only answer requests concerning `standard use'.
I had to resort to a website for `developers'.
I told him I didn't feel like a developer, I was trying
to use a product I'd bought from them for _viewing_ a 
perfectly standard-conforming pdf file. He insisted
I was scripting, so there was nothing he could do 
for me. I tried to make it clear to him that the
/Dur key was documented in Adobe's very own pdf
standard, for making slideshow presentations. So
how could I make a slideshow presentation with 
acrobat? (Maybe I could analyze a file acrobat would 
understand...)
He took _five_minutes_ of research before pointing me 
to the "advance every __ seconds" setting in the full
screen options menu. I told him I wanted the advancement
time to be part of the pdf file, and furthermore I wanted
different parts to advance differently fast. He told
me this was not possible.
I pointed him to the pdf reference which said that if
a viewer had a presentation mode, then its behaviour
was determined by the presentation mode keys (among
which /DUR). He told me what document I was talking
about. I told him "adobe pdf reference manual". He
asked me where I had got this from. I said from the
adobe web site. He asked for the url. I asked whether
he couldn't find out himself. He said he was doing
technical support for around 50 products, no way he
could know what and where the documentation of any
single one of them was. I said "http://partners.adobe.com..."
He said "See - that's for developers! You're a developer.
Go away."
He finally explained to me that `standard use' was
saving a word document to pdf and then loading it in
acrobat.
So I hung up and hit my head against the wall :,-(

regards
Stephan

-- 
  Stephan Lehmke     		 Stephan.Lehmke at cs.uni-dortmund.de
  Fachbereich Informatik, LS I	 Tel. +49 231 755 6434 
  Universitaet Dortmund		 FAX 		  6555
  D-44221 Dortmund, Germany