Hi all!

I have acrobat reader 7.0.
I don't know how to fix this error: "the current file cannot be viewed because a plug-in is not available in the current configuration".

I am trying to see a .mpg or .avi file (for a presentation)

In windoze it sais that can only display .avi and those work just fine!

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Use a multimedia player like mplayer or xine for viewing mpgs or avis.

I think he needs to see MPEG inside PDF.

This from the adobe website - when you downloaded acrobat reader 7.0 for linux either as .tar.gz or .rpm they told you:
i.e. there is a good chance that you simply cannot do this in linux. (people with windows 2000 for eg. can only get version 6!)

I suspect you need the microsoft avi codecs and something to point to them. Do the www.adobe.com support pages thing.

...
Not a lot of folk know that .pdf format can be used to create presentations. Including mpegs as part of the presentation would be a neat trick

I didn't know that adobe allowed mpegs and avi files in presentations but there's no reason why not.

The standard linux tool for creating presentations in .pdf format is called "pdfscreen" and it is part of the LaTeX 2e package. www.ctan.org will have more info. If adobe are inserting mpegs, chances are the latex team are working on it or have figured out how to do it.

I did know that. You learn something new everyday.

Someone does (learn & know) anyway...

pdftex has pdfscreen and ppower4, which are supposed to make it jump through hoops. Havn't seen reference to mpeg viewing tho. I wonder how adobe does it? I'd also be curious to see how xpdf and the gnome pdf viewer handle imbedded mpeg and avi files in portable document format - is it possible that a "system default" viewer is employed? That would explain the "no plugin" error quite tidily while not being fatal. Under linux, it may try to use the mozilla plaugins??? Can he play mpegs and avi files online? Javascript thingies? If it's just a matter of making sure the browser has the right plugins??? But IMO it's a long shot.

I'm using beamer to create exceptionally nice presentations

That's why I need to know how to see movies with acroread. This is the one that looks the best. I did one trick - made an external link for the movie to be opened by xine (which I can run from xpdf). But I can't use that for a win presentation (and you don't have a linux system everywhere )

So...in win acroreader I can only open avi, but in linux acroread nothing yet

Thanks everyone!

P.S. I'm a "she"

PRFFZC!!!!! Silly me, I should have known by your handwriting

Have you seen Linux Chix ?

Now - there's something that occurred to me last night ... I am imagining that acrobat reader displays mpegs and avis as part of the page? Or does a separate window open?

The normal way of creating pdf files in linux is to output a post-script file from you're fav. app and use ps2pdf ... and I don't see how an mpeg could get into an eps or ps file. However, I can see animations in pdfscreen...

However... distill produces pdf files from post-script as it's modus operandi ... so puzzle?!?

Looking at your issue from the other side - have you seen this discussion
http://www.planetpdf.com/forumarchive/25728.asp

Under linux, you may need the viewer used to wrap the movie - quicktime is what everyone says is to be used. Presumably you must have quicktime installed to view as well as create. (It would seem odd if Adobe Reader was also a video viewer wouldn't it?) So - do you have quicktime installed?

Surely Adobe Reader 7.0 does by definition have all the features of Adobe Reader 7.0!

hand of fate: One would hope so - however, I read this to mean that reader 7 for linux may not have all the advertised features for reader 7. Especially considering the message crops up for non-winXP download requests for reader 7.

It is possible that reader 7 in win XP will make use of some features of that OS - like RPC "on" by default or the integration of IE into everything. Like, if it uses IE routines to play back embedded avi's?

It certainly seems that linux, by default, lacks something that adobe needs to do this.

Adobe are so far silent on the issue. However, I did hear that acrobat reader 8.0 is expected to be fully implimented under linux - if this turns out to be true then yay!

Interesting to note: the last time I looked for acrobat for linux on the adobe site, their official word was to use xpdf because it was better than theirs. They also asserted that there were no plans to improve their linux implementation. Things have changed mightily in a few short years.

Thanks for the Linuxchix link I had no idea there is such a thing. I have only seen pictures of linuxchix as .... not for under 18.

As for my presentations now I have a strange solution: I have trasnformed all mpg in avi for win presentations and using an external viewer in linux presentations.

The thing that bothers meis that xine (for example) can only be used if I open my presentation with xpdf.
xpdf does not "fill in" the screen,but leaves its borders on. Can I get rid of it?

Completition: Beamer uses pdflatex to generate my pdf presentation.

Thanks for all your ideas, Simon!

To get rid of the borders in xpdf See man xpdf for a full listing.

Interesting about pdflatex ... it will be possible to write a tex input which will (in effect) detect the environment the document is opened in and then use the appropriate utility to open an mpeg (say). It may even be possible to arrange for mpegs or other video formats to open in their default application - which is more what I'd expect. So if you have configured Xine as the default mpeg viewer, then Xine is what gets used.

But what you've done sounds reasonable - you need only set soemthing to detect that a linux setup is present for the Xine code to take effect...

Linuxchix... well yes, I discovered them by accident looking for <ahem> something else... well no, actually I was doing a survey of women in linux at the time.

Thanks!

I use xpdf so much that I forgot about man

I think that acroread for linux has some things to clear ... in the future, because the same thing which works just fine in win, doesn't in linux. This is a very bad thing for the popularity of linux. All my friends are too scared of what they heard or seen when I work, that they just will not try!
.........................

Now I'm ok with my presentations both in win and linux. So I can go back to my real work