Here are some useful command line options for Adobe’s Reader and Acrobat products. If using Acrobat, substitute Acrobat.exe in place of AcroRd32.exe in the command lines. Also, depending on your PATH variable, you’ll probably need to specify the application’s full path.

I should first note that the following are old and/or unofficial. Your mileage may vary. In fact my own mileage has varied.

Open Reader at a specific page of a pdf:

AcroRd32.exe /A "page=page_number" filename.pdf

Open Reader and display a file:

AcroRd32.exe filename.pdf

Open Reader and print a file:

AcroRd32.exe /p filename.pdf

Open Reader, print a file while suppressing the Acrobat print dialog box, then terminate Reader:

AcroRd32.exe /t filename.pdf printername drivername portname
  • printername – The name of your printer.
  • drivername – Your printer driver’s name. Whatever appears in the Driver Used box when you view your printer’s properties.
  • portname – The printer’s port. portname cannot contain any “/” characters; if it does, output is routed to the default port for that printer.

A few more options:
/n Launch a separate instance of the Acrobat application, even if one is currently open.
/s Open Acrobat, suppressing the splash screen.
/o Open Acrobat, suppressing the open file dialog.
/h Open Acrobat in hidden mode.