I need help running a program from the command prompt. The program is a PDF to text converter, and the website says that it can be run directly from the command line. They have provided examples, but I can't seem to get them working. I ran the Command Prompt, and by using their examples, wrote the following:
PDF2TextPilot.exe "C:\Users\User\Desktop\PDF STARTER\my.pdf" "C:\Users\User\Desktop\PDF STARTER\my.txt"
The command prompt returns 'PDF2TextPilot.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
I have tried various other ways, and even changed the directory to the desktop.. or wherever.. I still get nothing.
I would really appreciate any help, because I have no experience with running applications via the command prompt.
Hey there xei and welcome to Geeks to Go,
It sounds like the program you are trying to run from command prompt cannot be found... This is usually because you are not in the directory where the program lies or because the programs directory you are trying to access isn't included in your environmental variables. So there are two simple ways of going about resolving your problem;
First method would be to access the director the program is installed, within your command prompt window; You can do this by:
- Opening
Command Prompt- Type "cd [PROGRAM DIRECTORY]" (cd is a command that helps you "change directory" and [PROGRAM DIRECTORY] will be where your program is installed; Eg. "C:\Program Files\Two Pilots\PDF2Text Pilot\")
- From this point you can enter in the command from above (Unfortunately I cannot test is as the program "PDF2TextPilot.exe" isn't in my folder, I only have "textextract.exe")
The problem with the above method is that you will be required to explicitly enter in the path of the PDF file and the output of the file. In the next method I will show you how to change environmental variables so that you can access "PDF2TextPilot.exe" from any directory on your computer. Step 2 follows:
- Click "
Start" button
- Click "
Control Panel"
- In the top right hand corner change "
View by:" to "
Small Icons"
- Click "
System"
- In the left pane, click "
Advanced system settings"
- Another window will pop up and you will have to navigate to the "
Advanced" tab
- Then click "
Environment Variables..." button near the bottom.
In the new window that pops up you can change variables for your specific user or for the entire system variables. I would recommend changing the variables for your user alone. So in the group box above it should say "User variables for [YOUR USERNAME]" then you need to:
- Click on "
PATH" to select it, within the "
Variable/Value" box
- Then click "
Edit..."
- MAKE SURE to goto the end of the line of "
Variable Value" (In other words DO NOT empty the textbox, make sure to reserve the text that is already in there)
- At the end of all the text make sure there is a semi-colon (
; )
- Next put in the directory where the program you want to open lies, eg.... "C:\Program Files\Two Pilots\PDF2Text Pilot\"
This will now allow you access to that folders contents and program outside of its folder... Below I will give you the examples of how you can use it now:
If you use method 2, you can now navigate to your desktop and the folder where the PDF files lie (In your case: "C:\Users\User\Desktop\PDF STARTER\"). You can do this by typing in "cd C:\Users\User\Desktop\PDF STARTER\". Now instead of typing the command you did above you can just type this in:
PDF2TextPilot my.pdf my.txtor you can type your command that you have in your question and can type that command irrelevant of the directory you are in.
I really hope this helps you solve your problem, please if you require anymore assistance don't hesitate to ask.
Peace Out
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