How to use PDXplorer PDX Viewer software

Refer to the download and installation instructions for the PDXplorer PDX Viewer.

PDXplorer Viewer operation

1. Click to open a PDX file.
2. Click to open this on-line help page in your default browser.
3. Go back to the previous element on the navigation tree.
4. Go forward to the next element on the navigation tree.

Most locations have a right-click context menu that allows you to copy text (Ctrl+C) and — where appropriate — export one file (Ctrl+E) or the selected node's group of files (Ctrl+G).

The Find window (context menu Find... or Ctrl+F) looks for text within the selected node.

5. The search will be constrained to elements within the selected navigation tree node. To search the entire PDX file, select (click to highlight) the top ProductDataeXchangePackage node before opening the Find window.
6. Enter the exact search text that you want to find; for example, ECO 001.
7. You can specify whether searches are limited to the element names in the (left-hand) navigation tree, attribute values within the (right-hand) detail panels, or both.
8. The number of matches will be incremented until no further matches are found. All matched elements are added to the navigation history list, and (after closing this window) you can move backwards and forwards to re-visit the elements.

The software that created the PDX file may have identified some elements as being "top level" objects. The navigation tree has two parts: the upper subtree displays a detailed breakdown of each element in the package; the lower subtree (if it exists) displays each top-level item as a multi-level BOM.

1. This icon indicates a top-level item, that is, a PDX Item element where its isTopLevel attribute is Yes.
2. All top-level items are collected in the Top-Level Items group. Their indented bills of materials are reconstructed from their, and their child items', BillOfMaterial sub-elements.

To copy the contents of a grid, click in the upper left corner and then right-click to display the context menu.

Grid rows can be sorted by clicking some column headers, such as Number or Description.

Click on a hyperlink to view a file. The file is opened using your computer's default application for that file type. Any modification to the file will not be saved in the PDX package.

PDXplorer Viewer customization

You can optimize the PDXplorer PDX Viewer window by editing XML configuration files.

For example, you can tailor the element labels to match a specific PLM system's export or to substitute another language.

In addition to English, the PDXplorer Viewer setup file includes several language translations (Deutsch, 中文, Español, Française).

To use one of these replacement files, follow the procedure below. You may need administrative permissions on your computer to perform these steps.

Always take a backup of the original XML file before making any changes to it.

1. Open Windows Explorer to the PDXplorer PDX Viewer application folder, and then the \XML\ sub-folder. This is typically C:\Program Files\PDXplorer Viewer\XML\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\PDXplorer Viewer\XML\

2. In this XML folder, open the Configuration.xml file using Notepad or similar plain text editor.

   As an example: To change the user labels to German, find and edit the line:

   from	<File name="UITextLookup" value="UITextLookup-EN.xml"/>
   to	<File name="UITextLookup" value="UITextLookup-DE.xml"/>

   Save the Configuration.xml file; this may require saving it to some other location, such as your Desktop, and then dragging it back into the XML folder. You can improve the provided translations or create other language translations by editing these UITextLookup files.

   Using the English version as a starting point, you can also create new (a) navigation tree translations with the ElementDisplayName file, and (b) grid detail labels with the AttributeDescriptor file.

   You must restart PDXplorer PDX Viewer for changes to take effect.

   We'd appreciate receiving your contributions for improving these configuration files.

Adobe Reader PDX file icon

Adobe Reader's secondary Catalog Index files use the same .pdx file extension as PDXplorer, although the files have different purposes. All PDX files will be associated with whichever application was last updated. Since most users never open Adobe Catalog Index files, it's usually more convenient for Windows Explorer to display PDXplorer's "package" icon.

After an Adobe Reader update, you can refresh the PDXplorer package icon using Windows Control Panel: open Programs and Features, scroll down and select PDXplorer Viewer, and then click the Repair button. This won't affect the normal Adobe Reader PDF file icon.