Close Acrobat from VBA if it tries to open a corrupt file

Hello everyone,

I have used some VBA code to download numerous files from the web. I saved them all with the .pdf extension, even if some of them are not pdf files.

Then, in another piece of code I open the documents one by one and check if I can find a given word.

A problem appears when Acrobat tries to open a file which is not a pdf file. A window from Acrobat pops up with the usual error "....not a supported file format...." but I'm struglling to close the Acrobat app from VBA. I tried "App.Exit", "AVDoc.Close True" without any notable success.

All suggestions are appreciated!

This is the actual code that I am using, borrowed from Christos Samaras. Even though the author tries to account for potential problems, mine is a bit more specific that does not follow into any of these categories. In other words, I am able to start Acrobat, Acrobat tries to open the file, file is not a genuine PDF file. Then a message box appears from Acrobat itself, warning me that the file is not supportef format or corrupted etc. The issue is that I have to manually click on the OK button of this Acrobat message box so that the programme can be closed, error message "Could not open the PDF file" appears in my Excel document and the code resumes with the next iteration, which is not feasible for me. Ideal solution would be to find a way to close Acrobat automatically from VBA after this message box appears.

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Hi,

See if this code helps.

The code needs reference to the Acrobat library. If you do not know how to add a reference you can find an easy tutorial here. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=vs.85%29.aspx


Hope this helps.

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Thanks

Hi,

Thanks for helpful reply!

I tried your code, adding the reference before running.

It opens the first pdf file and then a dialog box appears saying: "Error 438 (Object doesn't support this property or method) in procedure.....

Do you think I missed some reference or is it something else?

I tried it on a new document and it says "Error in loading DLL" so I guess it must be something with the references.

Hi,

Make sure you are adding this one

Capture.PNG


Thanks

Hi again,

I`m adding exactly this one, learned my lesson from a previous issue with Excel, but it doesn`t change anything. First pdf file is opened and Excel freezes with the error message box.

It's working for me.

I wonder if there is a scrip on the pdf maybe causing trouble.

Can you step through the code with F8? How far can you go ?

Thanks

I think it goes to

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and then jumps to the Error handler and shows the message box. There is nothing filled in the worksheet related to the outcome from the iteration (text found, not found, etc.)

I am sorry I apologize it was my mistake I am missing a dot between the sheet name and cell

The line in the else should be :

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Thanks

Why not just not save files that aren't PDFs as PDFs, this kind of feels like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted

It is my mistake not spotting the missing dot. Thanks, the code works now, but the problem still persists - after the dialog box from Acrobat appears when it tries to open the non-PDF file saved as PDF, Acrobat has to be closed manually.

Kyle123, another piece of code is used to download files from a list of URLs. I'm not sure it would be possible to apply your suggestion there.

So change the other bit of code? - this is just treating the symptoms and not addressing the cause

Hi again,

I am sorry for all the mishaps. This code will help you with what you need a think.

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Thanks

Sorry again lol

fredlo2010,

Can't express my gratitude for your help and suggestion! I don't think this issue can be solved though. Tried a lot of things (different ways of closing the programme, SendKeys), asked around, searched for it and there doesn't seem to be any solution. Perhaps dialog boxes coming from Acrobat are outside the reach of VBA.

I'll check to see if I can twist my other code that downloads the file.

An example of downloading a document only if it's a pdf. It will take the document title if it has one, if not you can specify a file name.

This will save the file to the desktop and will overwrite any document with the same name:

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Did you try my new code ?

Can you provide a sample of the workbook set up ?

Thanks

Kyle123, thanks for your suggestion. I would definitely think about this, however, my code for downloading files is working pretty well and smooth, whereas this one for the text search is just one step away from being completed (a step that turns out to be not that trivial at all). It's not that easy to twist it so that it first asserts that thefile is a genuine PDF file and then downloads it.

Fredlo, please see the files attached. PDF Search Through VBA.xlsmcorrupted.pdf

My Excel file and an example of corrupted file that cannot be read by Acrobat. Put some other random PDF files around it, run the code and you'll see what I mean.

Once again, thank you very much for your time and effort!

Why not? If you post your code perhaps we can make some suggestions

Here it is again.

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So when one starts executing this command by command, the following happens. You get to this:

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Acrobat tries to open the PDF file, but it is a corrupted (non-PDF) file, Acrobat dialog box pops up, VBA freezes since someone has to click on Acrobat and click OK on the dialog box that says the file is corrupted, then VBA resumes with the code. This is the drama.

I meant for downloading the pdfs.

Cannot post my code for some reason.

"Sucuri WebSite Firewall - CloudProxy - Access Denied"

Try sticking it in a .txt notepad file and attaching it to the post

download_files_macro.txt

So here it is.

I name my files "whatever.pdf" from the onset and supply to the macro like this. If I don't, code just downloads files with no specific format specified. Otherwise, works pretty fine.

Thank you very much for the suggestion, Kyle! I would definitely try it.

I have finally found a way to overcome this obstacle even if it's done outside VBA. I came across a great programme that checks if PDF files are corrupted/genuine and deletes them straightaway if not. This does the job for me. I'd mark this thread as solved. Thank you once again for your immense help and kindness.

Hello,

I have been looking for something that would allow us to check if the file is corrupted but no luck

http://help.adobe.com/livedocs/acrob...ccessible=true

lol crazy

I found something for a method "AVDocOpenParams" but apparently its not exposed through VBA

Apparently the last option ASBool suppressDialogs; would allow you to suppress any dialog thus solving our problem.

Thanks