Dragon and Acrobat Reader

[julesjones]

So, the error message I get when I try to open a PDF with Dragon running is:
"COM returned an unexpected error code: Details are HOOKERR_NONOTIFYWINDOW."
and Dragon then falls over, either immediately or within the next few minutes. Putting "dragon 10 acrobat reader" into Google got me the following as the first result (note that it's affecting Dragon v11 as well):

http://acrobatusers.com/forum/accessibility/adobe-reader-x-interface-problem-dragon-naturally-speaking-11/

And in case that thread disappears, Dragon and Adobe are blaming each other, the possible fixes are to buy the full Acrobat X, turn off protected mode in Acrobat Reader (works for some people but not others), or roll Reader back to a previous version. Or, as the original poster in the thread was thinking of, finding some other pdf reader...

The second link was
http://www.speechcomputing.com/node/4025
and apparently it was all over the speech recognition fora when Acrobat Reader X came out. There's a link in that thread to a technical note at Nuance (the people who own Dragon):
http://nuance.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6224/kw/Adobe%20reader%20X

If it comes down to having to ditch one of the programs, it's Reader that's getting the boot. And I'm not impressed with Adobe breaking one of the most widely used accessibility programs out there while supposedly improving accessibility.

ETA: another useful link: http://www.speakeasysolutions.com/blog/2011/03/07/dragon-error-com-returned-an-unexpected-error-code-details-are-hookerr_nonotifywindow/

Comments

[dsgood]

There are other free PDF readers, which might not have the same problem.

[julesjones]

It sounds as if Nuance's own PDF reader might work, so I'll probably try that if I continue to have problems.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

When I upgraded Adobe Reader to the latest version a few months back, I found that it would no longer run if I already had PGP running. Rather than turning Protected Mode off altogether, I managed to find a hack that allowed me to add PGP to Adobe Reader's whitelist. I'll add it here, in case you can do something similar for Dragon:

i. Add a registry entry enabling the use of whitelisting:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\FeatureLockDown] "bUseWhitelistConfigFile"=dword:00000001

ii. Create a whitelist file called "ProtectedModeWhitelistConfig.txt" and place it in the Adobe Reader executable path i.e. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 10.0\Reader

iii. The ProtectedModeWhitelistConfig.txt file will need to contain the string
SECTION_ALLOW_ANY = *PGPhk*

[julesjones]

Ta for that. I'm not trying it until I have time and energy to run a full backup (I do not like mucking about in the registry) and check what I'd need to whitelist, but that might be a useful hack.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Just thought I'd mention that the subject of the new Adobe Reader has come up in the OU tutor forums too. Not only with regard to using it with Dragon, but also it doesn't work properly with Chrome. Something about it not printing, I think.

Apparently there are other free PDF readers that a lot of people are using in preference. This is what one tutor said: "I have so many problems with Adobe and other software such as Drgon that I now have disabled Adobe and use Nuance PDF reader. This a free and there is a great facility to send PDF files to Nuance who will convert them to Word docs. for free and quick. Since using Nuance i have had no problems with conflicts and had numerous PDF files converted to Word to be able to cut and paste."

There are other options too such as Foxit (which I haven't used, but came recommended by a tutor).

Apologies if you had already found all this out yourself, but the subject just happened to come up in the OU IT forum, so thought I would pass it on.

[julesjones]

Thanks, I'd already found mention of those two, but it's useful to have recommendations from people who are actually using them successfully in conjunction with Dragon. Nuance also make Dragon, so one would hope that the two would work together, but you never know.