OpenDocument

Definition

Unit: Lazarus lclintf

function OpenDocument(APath: String): Boolean;

Official documentation: [1]

Description

opendocument opens a document/file with the default viewer/editor registered with the operating system for that file/file extension. E.g. on Windows, the code will use the registry to look up the file association for the extension.

Warning: On Windows at least in stable version (currently 1.0.6), trying to open documents with spaces in it will not work. This has been fixed in trunk (r36934) and it will probably be merged to 1.0.8. (See Issue #21659 in the bugtracker)

Example

uses 
...
lclintf
...
OpenDocument('readme.pdf');

Win NT "File names with spaces" workaround

The following is a simple function you can experiment with to do a similar job for file names with spaces. It is derived directly from OpenURL in <your lazarus install>\lcl\include\sysenvapis_win.inc, and has variations for wince and win9x removed - if you need those, see the original file. Experiment with is emphasised - it has only been tested for my particular use-case on windows 7. It does not seem to need the filename quoted.

uses windows;

function OpenFileDoc(Doc: String): Boolean;
var
  ws: WideString;
begin
  Result := False;
  if Doc = '' then Exit;
  ws := UTF8Decode(doc);
  Result := ShellExecuteW(0, 'open', PWideChar(ws), nil, nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL) > 32;
end;