Software Companions - PDF, DWF, PLT and TIFF Viewing and Conversion Software

ViewCompanion Command Line Interface

ViewCompanion CLI Documentation

The command line interface (CLI) enhances ViewCompanion by offering fast, efficient control through text-based commands. It’s ideal for power users who need to execute tasks quickly or automate repetitive processes using scripts. CLIs allow you to perform the tasks without navigating menus and will consume fewer system resources.
This page does document every available parameter in the ViewCompanion CLI.

ViewCompanion filename
Start Viewcompanion and open the file named "filename".

ViewCompanion /associate ext
Associate a file extension with ViewCompanion and the shell extension.
Sample command line to assoicate the pdf extension with ViewCompanion: viewcompanion.exe /associate pdf

ViewCompanion /c format inputfile outputfile
Convert the file named "inputfile" to a file of the given "format" to a new file named "outputfile".
If inputfile contains wilcards (for example *.*) the outputfile should be the destination folder for the converted files.
Valid options for format are:
Format IdentifierDescription
AVIFAVIF Image
BMPWindows BMP
CALSCALS Group 4 Raster
CGMCGM Binary
DWFAutodesk Drawing Web Format
DXFAutodesk DXF
EMFWindows Enhanced Metafile
GBRGerber RS274X
GIFGIF Image
HEICHEIC Image
JPEGJPEG Image
JPEG2KJPEG 2000 Image
JXLJPEG XL Image
PCXPaintbrush PCX
PDFAdobe PDF
PDFRASTERAdobe PDF Raster
PLTHPGL/2
PNGPortable Network Graphics
PSAdobe Postscript
SVGScalable Vector Graphics
TIFFTIFF Raster
WEBPGoogle WebP Image Format
WMFWindows Placeable Metafile

Sample command line: viewcompanion.exe /c PDF input.plt output.pdf


ViewCompanion /ci initname format inputfile outputfile
Same as /c command (see over), but uses a conversion configuration file to control the conversion.

ViewCompanion /cm format inputfilemask outputfile
Convert all input files matching the given "inputfilemask" to a single multipage file named "outputfile".
The inputfilemask can contain both * and ? characters.
The "inputfilemask" may also be the name of a text file that contains a list of all the files that will be converted. This text file must include one file name per text line. Batch list files (VBL) and ViewCompanion Project files (VPR) are accepted by this command.
Valid options for format are:
Format IdentifierDescription
DWFAutodesk Drawing Web Format
PDFAdobe PDF
PDFRASTERAdobe PDF Raster
PLTHPGL/2
TIFFTIFF Raster

Sample command line: viewcompanion.exe /cm PDF *.plt out.pdf


ViewCompanion /cmi initname format inputfilemask outputfile
Same as /cm but accepts a conversion configuration file name as second parameter.

ViewCompanion /cmpdf inputfilemask outputfile
Merge all input PDF files matching the given "inputfilemask" to a single multipage PDF file named "outputfile". The "inputfilemask" parameter can contain both * and ? characters. The "inputfilemask" may also be the name of a text file that contains a list of all the PDF files that will be merged. This text file must include one complete file name path per line. Both Batch list files (VBL) and Project files (VPR) are accepted as input.

ViewCompanion /compare comparefile1 comparefile2
Load and compare two files.

ViewCompanion /comparepdf comparefile1 comparefile2 output.pdf
Load two files and compare them, then save the comparison result to an output PDF file.

ViewCompanion /cpdfa level inputfile outputfile
Conform, or convert, the input PDF file named "inputfile" to a new PDF/A compliant file named "outputfile".
The level parameter is used to select the outpur PDF/A level and the following options are available:
  1. PDF/A-1B
  2. PDF/A-2B
  3. PDF/A-3B
  4. PDF/A-2U
  5. PDF/A-3U
  6. PDF/A-4
  7. PDF/A-4e
Please note that this parameter is only available in the Premium edition.

ViewCompanion /dw
This parameter will force the detail window to be shown after startup.

ViewCompanion /f listname
Load a text file that contains a list of one or more files to open. Each line should contain a file name to open.

ViewCompanion /lf-
This parameter will enable or disable the logfile creation. Use lf+ to enable the logfile and lf- to disable this function.

ViewCompanion /lu #
Select the unit to be used in the logfile. Use 0 for metric and 1 for imperial units.

ViewCompanion /lxml filename 
Load markup data from a XML formatted markup file. The ViewCompanion XML markup format description can be found here.
This parameter can be combined with the /c, /ci and /pi parameters.

ViewCompanion /namedview name
Load file and show the named view (DWF files only).

ViewCompanion /ne
Don't show the file explorer.

ViewCompanion /NoEdit
Disable all markup drawing functions.

ViewCompanion /NoSave
Disable the markup save function.

ViewCompanion /ocr inputfile outputfile
Create a searchable PDF file from an input file using the Tesseract OCR engine.
Supported input formats do include PDF, TIFF, PNG, CALS and more.
Please note that this parameter is only available in the Premium edition and requires Tesseract to be installed.

ViewCompanion /p filename
Open the file named "filename" and print it.

ViewCompanion /pi initname filename
Print the file named "filename" using settings stored in a printer init file named "initname"

ViewCompanion /pt filename printer driver port
Print the file named "filename" to a printer specified with printer, driver and port.

ViewCompanion /resetgui
In some rare situations the toolbars may be lost after a customization. Use this command line parameter to reset all toolbars and menus to default settings.

ViewCompanion /ro90 filename
Use this parameter to rotate the given file after loading. Valid rotation factors are 0, 90, 180 and 270.

ViewCompanion /rw
This parameter will force the reference window to be shown after startup.

ViewCompanion /s filename
This parameter will force ViewCompanion to check for a previous instance.
If a previous instance is found, it will be activated.
If a previous instance is not found, a new ViewCompanion instance will be started and activated.
Any filename given on the command line will be opened in the active instance.

ViewCompanion /splitpdf inputfile outputfolder numberofpages pagelabel
Split the input multipage PDF file into individual PDF files with one, or more, pages each.
The extracted PDF files will be placed in the given output folder.
The number of pages parameter is optional and controls the maximum number of pages in each output file. If not given, 1 page per file will be used. The page label is an optional text that will be placed between the original filename and the output file number. If you for example set this label to "page" and use one page per output file as follows:
viecompanion.exe /splitpdf "c:\test.pdf" "c:\temp" 1 "page"
If the input file contains 3 pages the following output files be created:
  • c:\temp\test_page_1.pdf
  • c:\temp\test_page_2.pdf
  • c:\temp\test_page_3.pdf

ViewCompanion /splittif inputfile outputfolder pagelabel
Split the input multipage TIFF file into individual TIFF files with one page each.
The extracted TIFF files will be placed in the given output folder.
The page label is an optional text that will be placed between the original filename and the output file number.
If you for example set this label to "page" and use one page per file as follows:
viecompanion.exe /splittif "c:\test.tif" "c:\temp" "page"
If the input file contains 3 pages the following output files be created:
  • c:\temp\test_page_1.tif
  • c:\temp\test_page_2.tif
  • c:\temp\test_page_3.tif

Please note that this parameter is only available in the Pro and Premium editions.

ViewCompanion /t pentablefile filename
Loads the file together with the given pentable.