It seems that new emacs 23.1 allows viewing of pdf, cfr. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/NEWS.23.1 """ ** DocView mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents. One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For details, see the commentary in doc-view.el. PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default. In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing the postscript file. """ I believe that each page of pdf is converted in png, so maybe there is no refresh . -- luigi -- luigi