PDF Thumbnails & Sumatra w/apologies :)

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fletch
Posts: 29
Joined: 18 Feb 2020 01:39

PDF Thumbnails & Sumatra w/apologies :)

Post by fletch »

Sorry for creating yet another topic on this subject :-)

So I've spent the past hour reading through a seemingly endless discussion on this topic and tried several things. Right now, it's partially working and boils down to this...

Sumatra 64-bit installed (had been using 32-bit and Explorer was working with that variant - displaying thumbnails, until now I had not idea it could do that)
Sumatra is now the default app for PDF's

When viewing the same folder...

XYplorer
SOME PDF's now have thumbnails, others use the Sumatra PDF icon.
No folders have thumbnails - even though the option is enabled.

Windows Explorer & Total Commander
ALL PDF's & Folders have thumbnails

So what in XYplorer might cause only SOME PDF's to display thumbnails?

The one thing that might have gotten XYplorer partially working was a Sumatra install option I'd never 'checked' before. "Let Windows show previews of PDF documents". Well duh, logical. That probably registers the DLL that does the work as a handler somewhere. After removing the 32-bit, installing the 64-bit, and checking that option, then XYplorer started showing previews for the first time. But not for all PDF's.

fletch
Posts: 29
Joined: 18 Feb 2020 01:39

Re: PDF Thumbnails & Sumatra w/apologies :)

Post by fletch »

I've uncovered a clue by chance. If I hover the mouse over one of the files without a thumbnail, THEN toggle on the preview, I get the tooltip shown in the attached image. If the mouse pointer is hovering over a PDF that HAS a thumbnail and I engage the preview window, the tooltip shows a small image of the PDF.

Not sure where the Can't Decode message is coming from nor why that happens. But it probably explains why that document doesn't have a thumbnail.

Keep in mind that Windows Explorer displays thumbnails for everything in the folder illustrated here and any other folders.
XY-Cant_decode.png
XY-Cant_decode.png (100.65 KiB) Viewed 1183 times

fletch
Posts: 29
Joined: 18 Feb 2020 01:39

Re: PDF Thumbnails & Sumatra w/apologies :)

Post by fletch »

...and there's always the chance that something in the local environment on some machines can affect the behavior of other software. So to rule that out, here's a pretty clear cut example of Explorer working but not XYplorer when it comes to PDF thumbnails with Sumatra installed. This is on a clean Win10 x64 VM.

https://www.screencast.com/t/kLjgx8ck

However, based on other threads here, I removed Sumatra and installed PDF-XChange Viewer 2.5 and both Explorer and XYplorer render PDF thumbnails ok. Not the ideal workaround but I guess a workaround nonetheless. I don't think Sumatra has been updated since 2016 so if it used to work or is supposed to work, maybe one of the many Win10 updates has changed something it depends on - either during install or execution. ALTHOUGH, it still works in Explorer, just not XYplorer. Still a mystery there.

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