# Open and View a Document

Because you must open a document before you can view, print, or save it, or perform any other operation on it, viewing a document means to open and view a document. It is possible, however, to open a document without viewing it, or in other words, to open a document with view mode disabled. In this mode, you can print or save the document without viewing it.

To open and view a document, call the `Open` method. See Open for a description of the possible return codes.

For example:

    nRet = KeyView1.Open("c:\docs\bigtree.jpg")

Using the default settings, this example results in a view of the specified document. However, a number of properties are available to change the default behavior of the `Open` method. See Control Properties for a list of relevant properties. The properties that begin with "`OPEN`" (for example, the `OPENMode` property and `OPENWaitOnOpen` property) apply to the `Open` method.

When a document is opened successfully, the `OpenDocDone` and `PageNumber` events are generated. These events indicate the progress of the document processing.

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