>so long as the exe is running when you attempt the ddeinitiate it doesn't matter how it got started so shellexecute would be fine.
>
>I wouldn't expect the FoxitReader to respond to DDE at all.
>
>If you go the DDE route you'll want to look at ddesetoption(). Perhaps increase the timeout according to the size of the PDF file.
>
>
>Nigel
>
Thanks again. Looks like we don't need PDF here, so I have to abandon this problem for now.

BTW, here is a response from Foxit site:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=3210&posted=1#post3210