[XeTeX] Adobe PDF, Adobe Acrobat/Reader, Microsoft Word, XeTeX, and (x)dvipdfm(x).

[Jonathan Kew]

On 27/05/2021 18:44, mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:
> On Thu, 27 May 2021, Philip Taylor wrote:
>> mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:
>>> Is this a function of the PDF writer "instructing" the reader to reload,
>>> or is it something the PDF reader does independently?
>>
>> Empirical observation suggests the former.  If it were the latter, then
>> would it (Adobe Acrobat, that is) not do the same when XeTeX + (x)dvipdfm(x)
>> attempts to write to the file ?  At the moment, the latter simply aborts and
>> the file remains unchanged.
> 
> Well, if the writer is aborting, then there must be some kind of
> communication between it and the reader already.

My guess would be that Acrobat has the file open, and Windows doesn't 
let the would-be writer open it for writing while someone else already 
has it open for reading.

>  Under Linux it would
> normally be impossible for the reader to prevent the writer from rewriting
> the file; but that's a different issue from what I thought was the
> question, about the reader knowing to reload the file *after* the writer
> has written it.  Seems like it will need some kind of Windows-specific
> handling to resolve, then.
>