Attachment PDF thumbnails (1 Legacy Vote)

Quicken Community

Show PDF as image Thumbnails

mshiggins

Good idea!

ALee643

I don't know why this can not be done.

thecreator

The reason why it can't be done, is that not all PDF Files are the same. They can all be read by all PDF Readers, bu they can't be edited (darken the type) without converting the file. Paperport Professional 14.5 is where my knowledge comes from.

Rocket J Squirrel

Does this suggestion mean that instead of the generic PDF icon, to show an image of the content of the first page of the file? This sounds nice, but is a terrible idea, as Quicken would have to open, read, and render the PDF attachment. This would be slow enough that you might as well just open the attachment and let your PDF reader display it.

ALee643

It certainly was handy in the past when I used an early version of Adobe Acrobat Pro and a much earlier version of Quicken that the first page thumbnail was shown in the attachment window instead of the generic pdf icon. Unfortunately I can't remember which Quicken and Acrobat versions it was working. I do not recall that Acrobat had to open the file in order to display a thumbnail each time I brought up the attachment view and experiencing performance issues of Quicken then. Unless I missed something (is it even possible to configure the display of the attachment window, if so I have not found it.), the current method of just opening files to identify and see the contents (I use mostly pdf files) is inefficient. Even displaying the original file name of the attachment by hovering your cursor over the generic icon would be helpful instead of just a date.

Dr Karron

(Removed-Language)
what is the registry key to have the pdf thumbnail app to make thumbnail bitmaps for quicken? I got it working nicely in explorer, but quicken is using a different registry key.

ALee643

I don't think its just a registry key change. It would be nice if Quicken is able to support showing the thumbnails of the pdf file in the attachment window, like Acrobat Reader does for Windows FIle Explorer. The current method of showing the pdf icon and only a date for a file name is pretty much useless if you have more than one pdf file attached to the transaction. You must open each file to find the one you want to look at.

dsalomon

> @"Rocket J Squirrel" said:
> Does this suggestion mean that instead of the generic PDF icon, to show an image of the content of the first page of the file? This sounds nice, but is a terrible idea, as Quicken would have to open, read, and render the PDF attachment. This would be slow enough that you might as well just open the attachment and let your PDF reader display it.

Or, it could generate the thumbnail when saved, then showing it would not be any slower. Old versions of Quicken did this (really, really old versions). I am guessing it was removed for cost saving reasons (i.e. it would cost Quicken money to license the technology to convert convert/view). I would be happy to pay a bit more to get that functionality back. I use PDF attachments for nearly all transactions. It's really aggravating to have to open the file to see the contents.

ALee643

dsalomon, thank you for confirming that a much older version of Quicken did indeed have the capability to show a thumbnail of of the first page. I use PDF files attachments for most of my transactions too. Not only is it aggravating to have to open each one to see the contents, you can not distinguish any of the files from each other in the attachments window because you only get a date displayed (i beleive the date is when its added as an attachment, never really paid that much attention to it, because that's pretty much useless IMO) versus the file name you gave the PDF file. Since Quicken is subscription based, there is no reason NOT to make it easier for the end user! I am a Quicken user for I don't remember how long (when it was Quicken or Microsoft Money as your only choices)!