Wow, that was fast. Thanks. All good questions. OK, here's what I found when I looked at how I created $outfile: 
    $0 =~ /(.*)\.pl/;
    my $outname = "$1.pdf";

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This was in a subroutine so $outfile was local. I then tried to use it outside the subroutine so that was the problem. I removed the my and now the above call works. I can also invoke just the name and that works too: 
system $outname;

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I tried this with exec and I get:
There was an error opening this document. This file cannot be found.
and then it opens when I 'OK' the dialog. What is the syntax for exec? I though it was the same.

In reply to Re: How do you open a PDF file from a perl script in Windows? by hmj6jmh
in thread How do you open a PDF file from a perl script in Windows? by hmj6jmh

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