Xpdf fit to page width in fullscreen mode

Question

When I call the command:

$ xpdf file.pdf -z width -fullscreen

...it does not have the desired effect.

The individual options:

$ xpdf file.pdf -z width

...and:

$ xpdf file.pdf -fullscreen

...work as expected.

Is it possible to achieve the desired effect in xpdf?

Answer 1

Sure enough. This appears to be a bug in xpdf.

You can switch to "width" view easily by tapping w as soon as xpdf opens, but there does not seem to be a way to make it behave from the command line. The only thing I could think of would be to hack it using expect or some sort of keyboard event routing to the X window to send it that keystroke when it starts up.

Answer 2

I used Evince for this, but I grew tired of the scrollbars. When setting it up for Xpdf, I encountered this very problem. This is a workaround - without exaggerating ;) - that seems to do the trick:

#!/usr/bin/zsh

# This allows you to use xpdf with options, although you're invoking
# it implicitly from Iceweasel. Just pick this script (instead of
# /usr/bin/xpdf) as your PDF reader under Preferences: Applications.

/usr/bin/xpdf -fullscreen -rv $1 &
while (( ! `wmctrl -l | grep Xpdf | wc -l` )) { sleep 0.1 }
xmacroplay "$DISPLAY" < ~/keydowns/xpdf &> /dev/null

# ~/keydowns/xpdf:
#
# KeyStrPress W
# KeyStrRelease W