I am trying to print an existing file to PDF programmatically in Visual Basic 2008.
Our current relevant assets are:
Visual Studio 2008 Professional
Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.0
I thought about getting a sdk like ITextSharp, but it seem like overkill for what I am trying to do especially since we have the full version of Adobe.
Is there a relatively simple bit of code to print to a PDF printer (and of course assign it to print to a specific location) or will it require a the use of another library to print to pdf?
I want to print a previosly created document to a pdf file. In this case it a .snp file that I want to make into a .pdf file, but I think the logic would be the same for any file type.
I just tried the above shell execute, and it will not perform the way I want it to. as it prompts me as to where I want to print and still does not print where I want it to (multiple locations), which is crucial as we create a lot of the same named PDF files (with different data within the PDF and placed in corresponding client folders)
The current process is:
Go to \\report server\client1
create pdf files of all the snp documents in the folder by hand
copy the pdf to \\website reports\client1
then repeat for all 100+ clients takes roughly two hours to complete and verify
I know this can be done better but I have only been here three months and there were other pressing concerns that were a lot more immediate. I also was not expecting something that looks this trivial to be that hard to code.
The big takeaway point here is that PDF IS HARD. If there is anything you can do to avoid creating or editing PDF documents directly, I strongly advise that you do so. It sounds like what you actually want is a batch SNP to PDF converter. You can probably do this with an off-the-shelf product, without even opening Visual Studio at all. Somebody mentioned Adobe Distiller Server -- check your docs for Acrobat, I know it comes with basic Distiller, and you may be able to set up Distiller to run in a similar mode, where it watches Directory A and spits out PDF versions of any files that show up in Directory B.
An alternative: since you're working with Access snapshots, you might be better off writing a VBA script that iterates through all the SNPs in a directory and prints them to the installed PDF printer.
ETA: if you need to specify the output of the PDF printer, that might be harder. I'd suggest having the PDF distiller configured to output to a temp directory, so you can print one, move the result, then print another, and so on.
This is how I do it in VBScript. Might not be very useful for you but might get you started. You need to have a PDF maker (adobe acrobat) as a printer named "Adobe PDF".
'PDF_WILDCARD = "*.pdf"
'PrnName = "Adobe PDF"
Sub PrintToPDF(ReportName As String, TempPath As String, _
OutputName As String, OutputDir As String, _
Optional RPTOrientation As Integer = 1)
Dim rpt As Report
Dim NewFileName As String, TempFileName As String
'--- Printer Set Up ---
DoCmd.OpenReport ReportName, View:=acViewPreview, WindowMode:=acHidden
Set rpt = Reports(ReportName)
Set rpt.Printer = Application.Printers(PrnName)
'Set up orientation
If RPTOrientation = 1 Then
rpt.Printer.Orientation = acPRORPortrait
Else
rpt.Printer.Orientation = acPRORLandscape
End If
'--- Print ---
'Print (open) and close the actual report without saving changes
DoCmd.OpenReport ReportName, View:=acViewNormal, WindowMode:=acHidden
' Wait until file is fully created
Call waitForFile(TempPath, ReportName & PDF_EXT)
'DoCmd.Close acReport, ReportName, acSaveNo
DoCmd.Close acReport, ReportName
TempFileName = TempPath & ReportName & PDF_EXT 'default pdf file name
NewFileName = OutputDir & OutputName & PDF_EXT 'new file name
'Trap errors caused by COM interface
On Error GoTo Err_File
FileCopy TempFileName, NewFileName
'Delete all PDFs in the TempPath
'(which is why you should assign it to a pdf directory)
On Error GoTo Err_File
Kill TempPath & PDF_WILDCARD
Exit_pdfTest:
Set rpt = Nothing
Exit Sub
Err_File: ' Error-handling routine while copying file
Select Case Err.Number ' Evaluate error number.
Case 53, 70 ' "Permission denied" and "File Not Found" msgs
' Wait 3 seconds.
Debug.Print "Error " & Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description & vbCr & "Please wait a few seconds and click OK", vbInformation, "Copy File Command"
Call sleep(2, False)
Resume
Case Else
MsgBox Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description
Resume Exit_pdfTest
End Select
Resume
End Sub
Sub waitForFile(ByVal pathName As String, ByVal tempfile As String)
With Application.FileSearch
.NewSearch
.LookIn = pathName
.SearchSubFolders = True
.filename = tempfile
.MatchTextExactly = True
'.FileType = msoFileTypeAllFiles
End With
Do While True
With Application.FileSearch
If .Execute() > 0 Then
Exit Do
End If
End With
Loop
End Sub
Public Sub sleep(seconds As Single, EventEnable As Boolean)
On Error GoTo errSleep
Dim oldTimer As Single
oldTimer = Timer
Do While (Timer - oldTimer) < seconds
If EventEnable Then DoEvents
Loop
errSleep:
Err.Clear
End Sub
PDFforge offers PDFCreator. It will create PDFs from any program that is able to print, even existing programs. Note that it's based on GhostScript, so maybe not a good fit to your Acrobat license.
Have you looked into Adobe Distiller Server ? You can generate PostScript files using any printer driver and have it translated into PDF. (Actually, PDFCreator does a similar thing.)
What you want to do is find a good free PDF Printer driver. These are installed as printers, but instead of printing to a physical device, render the printer commands as a PDF. Then, you can either ShellExecute as stated above, or use the built in .net PrintDocument, referring the the PDF "printer" by name. I found a couple free ones, including products from Primo and BullZip (freedom limited to 10 users) pretty quickly.
It looks like SNP files are Microsoft Access Snapshots. You will have to look for a command line interface to either Access or the Snapshot Viewer that will let you specify the printer destination.
I also saw that there is an ActiveX control included in the SnapshotViewer download. You could try using that in your program to load the snp file, and then tell it where to print it to, if it supports that functionality.
I had the same challenge. The solution I've made was buying a component called PDFTron. It has an API to send pdf documents to a printer from an unattended service.
I posted some information in my blog about that. Take a look!
How to print a PDF file programmatically???
Try using ShellExecute with the Print Verb.
Here is a blog I found with Google.
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=508684
If you are trying to hand generated the PDF (with and SDK or a PDF printer driver) it's not very easy. The PDF format reference is available from Adobe.
The problem is that the file is a mix of ASCII and tables that have binary offsets within the file to reference objects. It is an interesting format, and very extensible, but it is difficult to write a simple file.
It's doable if you need to. I looked at the examples in the Adobe PDF reference, hand typed them in and worked them over till I could get them to work as I needed. If you will be doing this a lot it might be worth it, otherwise look at an SDK.
I encountered a similar problem in a C# ASP.NET app. My solution was to fire a LaTeX compiler at the command line with some generated code. It's not exactly a simple solution but it generates some really beautiful .pdfs.
Imports System.Drawing.Printing
Imports System.Reflection
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Public Class Form1
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Dim pkInstalledPrinters As String
' Find all printers installed
For Each pkInstalledPrinters In _
PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters
printList.Items.Add(pkInstalledPrinters)
Next pkInstalledPrinters
' Set the combo to the first printer in the list
If printList.Items.Count > 0 Then
printList.SelectedItem = 0
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Try
Dim pathToExecutable As String = "AcroRd32.exe"
Dim sReport = " " 'pdf file that you want to print
'Dim SPrinter = "HP9F77AW (HP Officejet 7610 series)" 'Name Of printer
Dim SPrinter As String
SPrinter = printList.SelectedItem
'MessageBox.Show(SPrinter)
Dim starter As New ProcessStartInfo(pathToExecutable, "/t """ + sReport + """ """ + SPrinter + """")
Dim Process As New Process()
Process.StartInfo = starter
Process.Start()
Process.WaitForExit(10000)
Process.Kill()
Process.Close()
Catch ex As Exception
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message) 'just in case if something goes wrong then we can suppress the programm and investigate
End Try
End Sub
End Class
Similar to other answers, but much simpler. I finally got it down to 4 lines of code, no external libraries (although you must have Adobe Acrobat installed and configured as Default for PDF).
Dim psi As New ProcessStartInfo
psi.FileName = "C:\Users\User\file_to_print.pdf"
psi.Verb = "print"
Process.Start(psi)
This will open the file, print it with default settings and then close.
Adapted from this C# answer
Related
I need to retrieve the number of pages in PDF files (with security), using Excel VBA.
The following code works when there is no security enabled in the PDF file:
Sub PDFandNumPages()
Dim Folder As Object
Dim file As Object
Dim fso As Object
Dim iExtLen As Integer, iRow As Integer
Dim sFolder As String, sExt As String
Dim sPDFName As String
sExt = "pdf"
iExtLen = Len(sExt)
iRow = 1
' Must have a '\' at the end of path
sFolder = "C:\test\"
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If sFolder <> "" Then
Set Folder = fso.GetFolder(sFolder)
For Each file In Folder.Files
If Right(file, iExtLen) = sExt Then
Cells(iRow, 1).Value = file.Name
Cells(iRow, 2).Value = pageCount(sFolder & file.Name)
iRow = iRow + 1
End If
Next file
End If
End Sub
However, if there is any kind of security enabled, then the code is unable to extract the page numbers & returns Zero pages.
Note: There is no Password protection to open these PDF files, it only has some security features enabled to prevent modification of the PDF.
Sample PDF with security enabled are available on following Google Drive link: Google Drive PDF with security
My requirement is to tweak the code so that the page numbers in PDF files are displayed whether there is any security or not.
For Python, I found a similar question & solution at this page, however it uses Python libraries. If possible, I'd like an expert on VBA side to suggest how I can replicate this in VBA
If the PDF document doesn't have a Permissions Password setup (or if you know the password), you can modify the document restrictions such as page extraction.
Open the document manually with a proprietary or 3rd-party editor
Go File → Properties
In the Security tab, choose Show Details…
To make changes to the PDF’s restrictions, go View → Tools → Protection
In the Tools Pane, click Encrypt and in the Protection section, choose Remove Security.
If there is a Permissions Password, you will need to enter it here.
The permissions will now change to "Allowed".
(Source)
The "Hacky" Method:
If the above method doesn't work for you, there's a workaround that may do the trick. You won't be unlocking the file itself per se, but you can generate an unlocked equivalent that can be edited and manipulated to your heart's content.
Open the document that you wish to unlock in Adobe Acrobat Reader
Click File and then Print.
In the Printers list, select "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" and then click Print.
If you try to use Adobe's PDF printer driver, it will detect that you are attempting to export a secured PDF to a fresh file and it will refuse to continue. Even third-party PDF print drivers tend to choke on such files.
However, by using the XPS Document Writer, you effectively circumvent that check entirely, leaving yourself with an XPS output.
Open the new XPS file you have just created and simply repeat the printing process, only this time printing to PDF format.
If you do not have a PDF printer to select in your list of printers, there are various freeware options available online (such as CutePDF Writer) which will allow you to set up a virtual printer that generates PDFs. (Source)
Edit: (Alternate Answer)
Returning the Page Count of a PDF File
To find the total number of pages in a PDF file in VBA, you could open it as a binary file and then parse the file looking for "/Count", and then reading the number that follows.
Below is an example that works on your sample files (6 & 8 pages), but may need "tweaking" depending on the structure of the individual PDF files on hand.
(In some cases, you may be better off to count the individual occurrences of the "/Page" or "/Pages" tags, although that number may need to be reduced by 1 or 2.)
Note that this is not a very efficient way of parsing binaries, so large files could take a while to parse.
Sub Get_PDF_Page_Count()
'scrape PDF file as binary, looking for "/Count" tag, then return the number following it
Const fName = "C:\your_path_here\1121-151134311859-64.pdf"
Dim bytTemp As Byte, fileStr As String, c As Long, p1 As Long, p2 As Long
'open PDF as binary file
Debug.Print "Reading File '" & fName & "'";
Open fName For Binary Access Read As #1
'read file into string
Do While Not EOF(1)
'parse PDF file, one byte at a time
Get #1, , bytTemp
c = c + 1
fileStr = fileStr & Chr(bytTemp)
'check every 20000 characters, if the tag was found yet
If c / 20000 = c \ 20000 Then
If InStr(fileStr, "/Count") > 0 Then Exit Do
' not found yet, keep going
Debug.Print ".";
DoEvents
End If
Loop
'close file
Close #1
Debug.Print
'check if tag was found
If InStr(fileStr, "/Count") = 0 Then
Debug.Print "'/Count' tag not found in file: " & fName
Exit Sub
End If
'return page count
p1 = InStr(fileStr, "/Count")
p1 = InStr(p1, fileStr, " ") + 1
p2 = InStr(p1, fileStr, vbLf)
Beep
Debug.Print Val(Mid(fileStr, p1, p2 - p1)) & " pages in file: " & fName
End Sub
I have written a small macro that takes an daily Excel report and prints it to a specific printer (printing to PDF). When I run the macro, I am still missing the final steps. Running it as is, I still need to click the "save" button that pops up, and have to navigate to the correct file path. Is there a way to have it automatically hit the save button for me, and save the file into the correct folder (as seen in the code below)?
Sub printToPDF()
'declare variable for my file path
Dim filePath As String
'declare variable for my file name
Dim fileName As String
fileName = "Operations_Daily_Outage_Report_" & Format(Date, "yyyy-mm-dd")
filePath = "M:\Daily_Outage_Report\Active"
Worksheets("general_report").PageSetup.CenterVertically = False
ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintOut Copies:=1, ActivePrinter:="Foxit Reader PDF Printer"
End Sub
I think everyone is trying to give you answers that you can try out. I'm not sure why you can't just test it and tell us if it works for you?
If you have a reasonably new version of Access (within last 10 years), then you should be able to use the built-in Office PDF converter
Change this line:
ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintOut Copies:=1, ActivePrinter:="Foxit Reader PDF Printer"
To This:
Worksheets("general_report").ExportAsFixedFormat Type:=xlTypePDF _
FileName:=filePath & "\" & fileName Quality:=xlQualityStandard
Come back and tell us if it worked for you.
I have been using folder browser for VBA, I could paste the code of it, but bottom line is that I get returned file name as a string.
Is there any way to access drawing properties (i.e number of layouts) without open?
Public Sub TestFileDialog()
dwgname = FileBrowseOpen("C:", "*", ".dwg", 1) 'dwgname is typeof string
End Sub
Its only the first step (use of FileBrowseOpen function is shown, but also i can use FolderBrowse and collect all .dwg inside of folder),actually i had in mind to batch export all layouts of selected .dwgs to currenty open one. Is there any chance for that?
To effectively read a .dwg file you'll need to open AutoCAD, otherwise the information is not accessible. Some properties may be, such as author, but not number of layouts...
But you can use AutoCAD Console (accoreconsole.exe) to run a headless AutoCAD and use APIs to read any information you need. This is really fast for reading lot's of files and the user will not see it running (but it needs to be installed anyway).
http://aucache.autodesk.com/au2012/sessionsFiles/3338/3323/handout_3338_CP3338-Handout.pdf
you could stay in VBA and use ObjectDBX
it leads to a very similar approach as accoreconsole.exe on in .NET does, i.e you won't see any drawing open in UI since it works on the database itself
It requires adding library reference (Tools->References) to "AutoCAD/ObjectDBX Common XX.Y Type Library", where "XX.Y" is "19.0" for AutoCAD 2014
a minimal functioning code is
Sub main()
Dim myAxDbDoc As AxDbDocument
Dim FullFileName As String
FullFileName = "C:\..\mydrawing.dwg" '<== put here the full name of the file to be opened
Set myAxDbDoc = AxDb_SetDrawing(FullFileName)
MsgBox myAxDbDoc.Layers.Count
End Sub
Function AxDb_SetDrawing(FullFileName As String) As AxDbDocument
Dim DBXDoc As AxDbDocument
Set DBXDoc = Application.GetInterfaceObject("ObjectDBX.AxDbDocument.19") '<== place correct AutoCAD version numeber ("19" works for AutoCAD 2014)
On Error Resume Next
DBXDoc.Open FullFileName
If Err <> 0 Then
MsgBox "Couldn't open" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & FullFileName, vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "AxDB_SetDrawing"
Else
Set AxDb_SetDrawing = DBXDoc
End If
On Error GoTo 0
End Function
Still, you must have one AutoCAD session running from which make this sub run! But you should have it since talked about "currently open" drawing
I have a number of large Microsoft Word documents with many linked files from many Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. When opening a Word document, even with the 'update linked files at open' option unchecked:
Word still checks each link at its source by opening and closing the relevant excel spreadsheet for each individual link (so for x number of links, even if from the same spreadsheet, Word will open and close the spreadsheet x times). This means opening documents takes a very long time.
I have found that documents open faster if the spreadsheets containing the source of linked objects are already open, so Word doesn't keep opening, closing, reopening them.
So far, the beginnings of a solution I have is to create a list of all the filepaths of the linked objects, done by following VBA code:
Sub TypeArray()
Dim List(), Path As String
Dim i, x As Integer
Dim s As InlineShape
Dim fso As FileSystemObject, ts As TextStream
Set fso = New FileSystemObject
Set ts = fso.OpenTextFile("C:\MyFolder\List.txt", 8, True)
With ts
.WriteLine (ActiveDocument.InlineShapes.Count)
End With
For Each s In ActiveDocument.InlineShapes
Path = s.LinkFormat.SourcePath & "\" _
& s.LinkFormat.SourceName
With ts
.WriteLine (Path)
End With
Next s
End Sub
'--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Private Sub WriteStringToFile(pFileName As String, pString As String)
Dim intFileNum As Integer
intFileNum = FreeFile
Open pFileName For Append As intFileNum
Print #intFileNum, pString
Close intFileNum
End Sub
'--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Private Sub SendFileToNotePad(pFileName As String)
Dim lngReturn As Long
lngReturn = Shell("NOTEPAD.EXE " & pFileName, vbNormalFocus)
End Sub
which works well, but can only be used after a document is already open, which defeats its purpose.
So, finally, my question(s) are these:
1) Is there a way to run this code (or any better, more efficient code - suggestions are welcome) before opening a Word document and waiting through the long process of checking each link at its source?
2) Is there a way to avoid all this and simply have Word not check the links when it I open a document?
Sorry for the long question, and thank you for the help!
If I am not wrong there should be Document_Open event according to msdn. This should actually be a before open document and should be fired before updating links (at least it in excel it is fired before calculation).
Try opening the files on document open. Then you will face another problem, and so when to close the files, but that is a much easier thing to do. (probably document_close event...)
EDITTED:
As comments state, this is too late. You can create a word opener (as a single app or as an addin). The logic basically is:
'1) on something_open run GetOpenFileName dialog
'2) before opening the real thing, open all files accompanied
'3) open the document itself
'4) close all files
'5) close the opener itself
This is not the most trivial way, but I use this logic for exampe to make sure, that my applications always runs in a fresh copy of excel etc. But I understand that this is a workaround rather then a solution.
If you are still looking for something on this front, I created the following in a combination of VBA and VB.NET (in VS 2010) to show what can be done quite easily using that system. If VB.NET is no use to you, sorry, but there are reasons why I don't really want to spend time on the pure VBA approach.
At present, it is a "console" application which means you'll probably see a box flash up when it runs, but also means that you are more likely to be able to create this app without VS if you absolutely had to (AFAICR the VB.NET /compiler/ is actually free). It just fetches the link info. (i.e. there's currently no facility to modify links).
The overview is that you have a small piece of VBA (say, in your Normal template) and you need an open document. The VBA starts a Windows Shell, runs the VB.NET program and passes it the full path name of the document you want to open.
The VB.NET program opens the .docx (or whatever) and looks at all the Relationships of type "oleObject" that are referenced from the Main document part (so right now, the code ignores headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes and anywhere else you might have a link)
The VB.NET program automates Word (which we know is running) and writes each link URL into a sequence of Document Variables in the active document. These variables are called "Link1", "Link2", etc. If there are no links (I haven't actually tested that path properly) or the program can't find the file, "Link0" should be set to "0". Otherwise it should be set to the link count.
The shell executes synchronously, so your VBA resumes when it's done. Then you either have 0 links, or a set of links that you can process.
The VBA is like this:
Sub getLinkInfo()
' the full path name of the program, quoted if there are any spaces in it
' You would need to modify this
Const theProgram As String = """C:\VBNET\getmaindocumentolelinks.exe"""
' You will need a VBA reference to the "Windows Script Host Object Model"
Dim oShell As WshShell
Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
' plug your document name in here (again, notice the double quotes)
If oShell.Run(theProgram & " ""c:\a\testdocexplorer.docx""", , True) = 0 Then
With ActiveDocument.Variables
For i = 1 To CInt(.Item("Link0").Value)
Debug.Print .Item("Link" & CStr(i))
Next
End With
Else
MsgBox "Attempt to retrieve links failed"
End If
End Sub
For the VB.NET, you would need the Office Open XML SDK (I think it's version 2.5). You need to make references to that, and Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.
The code is as follows:
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Linq
Imports System.Text
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Xml
Imports System.Xml.Linq
Imports DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging
Imports Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word
Module Module1
Const OLEOBJECT As String = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/oleObject"
Sub Main()
Dim s() As String = System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()
If UBound(s) > 0 Then
Dim wordApp As Word.Application
Try
wordApp = GetObject(, "Word.Application")
Dim targetDoc As Word.Document = wordApp.ActiveDocument
Try
Dim OOXMLDoc As WordprocessingDocument = WordprocessingDocument.Open(path:=s(1), isEditable:=False)
Dim linkUris As IEnumerable(Of System.Uri) = From rel In OOXMLDoc.MainDocumentPart.ExternalRelationships _
Where rel.RelationshipType = OLEOBJECT _
Select rel.Uri
For link As Integer = 0 To linkUris.Count - 1
targetDoc.Variables("Link" & CStr(link + 1)).Value = linkUris(link).ToString
Next
targetDoc.Variables("Link0").Value = CStr(linkUris.Count)
OOXMLDoc.Close()
Catch ex As Exception
targetDoc.Variables("Link0").Value = "0"
End Try
Finally
wordApp = Nothing
End Try
End If
End Sub
End Module
I originally wrote the .NET code as a COM object, which would be slightly easier to use from VBA, but significantly harder to set up on the .NET side and (frankly) much harder to modify & debug as you have constantly to close Word to release the references to the COM DLLs.
If you actually wanted to fix up the LINK paths, as far as I can tell, modifying them in the relationship records is enough to get Word to update the relevant LINK fields when it opens Word, which saves having to modify the XML code for the LINK fields as well. But that's another story...
I just found out that you can set/modify a DelayOleSrvParseDisplayName registry entry and a NoActivateOleLinkObjAtOpen registry entry to modify the global behaviour:
See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970154
I also found that activedocument.fields can contain links to external objects (in my case, an Excel sheet).
Use this code to parse them:
for each f in activedocument.fields
debug.print f.code
next
And use activedocument.fields(FIELDNUMBER) to select each object, to figure out where it is in the document.
Maybe also activedocument.Variables and activedocument.Hyperlinks can contain links to external objects? (not in my case).
I'm trying to pull some data from a large PDF file in VB.Net I found the following code online, but it's not helping:
Sub PrintPDF (strPDFFileName as string)
Dim sAdobeReader as String
'This is the full path to the Adobe Reader or Acrobat application on your computer
sAdobeReader = "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe"
RetVal = Shell(sAdobeReader & "/P" & Chr(34) & sStrPDFFileName & Chr(34), 0)
End Sub
I'm really lost. Any ideas?
/P will just display load the file and display the Print dialog - dead end.
You will probably need a library of some sort to get to the contents of the PDF.
If the file has a very simple structure you maybe able to extract the data just by reading the bytes. See if you can open it with a file like Notepad++ and see the contents.
BTW VS2010 has several editors for looking at/editing files:
File, Open File... pick the file then use the dropdown on the Open button.