Open and view pdfs iteratively in Python, but stay on the shell

Question

I am writing a short script that will loop through the pdf files in a directory, open them iteratively and let me classify them. The code I've written almost does everything I want. It loops through the files and opens and closes them. Note I'm working on Linux.

However, the cursor is not always staying on the shell, and I don't want to have to keep pressing Alt-tab. Does anyone know a way to use subprocess to run system commands, but to never move away from the shell when Python is running?

A simplified version of what I've got so far:

import signal
import os
import subprocess
import glob

files = glob.glob("pdfs/*.pdf", recursive=True)

for ff in files:
    # get the evince call
    command = f"evince --fullscreen {ff}"
    # open the pdf
    process_cat = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout = subprocess.PIPE, shell = True)
    next = input("Keep viewing files? Y/N")
    # close the pdf
    os.kill(process_cat.pid, signal.SIGKILL)

    if next != "Y":
        break

Have a look at the pywin32 module. I have never tried what you ask for myself but it looks like it is possible: blog.pythonlibrary.org/2014/10/20/…. — Christian K.
– Christian K., Commented May 4, 2021 at 10:58
Thanks. I should have added I'm working with Linux, though at the minute I'm trying to take a similar appproach to that described in the link — Robert Wilson
– Robert Wilson, Commented May 4, 2021 at 11:00

ClimateUnboxed · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-13 10:15:54Z

1

idea 1: use of browser

No idea if this will help, but are you wedded to a linux shell approach, would viewing in a web browser perhaps work better?

If so, I was wondering if this package might help?

import webbrowser
files = glob.glob("pdfs/*.pdf", recursive=True)

for ff in files:
    webbrowser.open_new(ff)
    # etc

idea 2: direct display of PNG

Would conversion to PNG and then direct display of the image file from python itself also be an alternative? This post may help in that case: View pdf image in an iPython Notebook

edited Jun 13, 2021 at 10:15

answered Jun 12, 2021 at 19:43

ClimateUnboxed

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2 Comments

Robert Wilson Over a year ago

That would work, mostly. Though in this case I needed finer grained control, such as dual viewing of the pdfs, which my webbrowser doesn't offer.

ClimateUnboxed Over a year ago

Just thinking out loud, but what about conversion to PNG and then directly viewing the PNG fromn python? Does this post help? stackoverflow.com/questions/19470099/…

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