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For just a free, straight-forward, full-featured PDF reader/viewer/text-finder I've been a long time user of Foxit Reader: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-rea

For just a free, straight-forward, full-featured PDF reader/viewer/text-finder I've been a long time user of Foxit Reader: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-reader/ https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-reader/ It's a mature product at this point and have had a good experience for years now.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
I used to recommend Foxit too, but all major browsers now ship with good PDF support.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Not Safari.
  - eric_h 6y ago
    How so? I have no problem opening PDF links directly in Safari.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Safari "supports PDF", but not well. The PDF viewer is run in an extremely janky view that clearly has not been updated in years. It runs out-of-process, but takes little advantage of the many advances in XPC rendering that have come in recent years; as such it cannot handle looking up services correctly, or vibrancy, or even have Retina support for its UI. And those are just visual: the PDF support itself is shoddy; it's unable to do many things that other browsers can do out-of-the-box (forms?), searching for text has been broken for the better part of a year. It's an obvious rough spot in Safari's otherwise polished interface.
      - eric_h 6y ago
        Fair criticism. I guess my bar for what I define as "good PDF support" is much lower than yours - I only generally read them or plug in a digital signature when signing my lease.
        saagarjha 6y ago
        Personally, I am loath to download documents. I actually like what iOS Safari does, which is run the generic document previewer on files inside the app itself. I hate clicking on a link on my computer and then getting a PPTX that I have to open in PowerPoint.
- TylerE 6y ago
  For me, not being in the browser is a feature, not a bug. I often want to be able to open a PDF in a dedicated window I can easily switch to.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    Sure, but you can open a PDF in a new browser window. I'd rather not broaden my trusted codebase by installing another PDF reader.
    - TylerE 6y ago
      OSs have this annoying habit of condensing multiple windows of a single application down to one taskbar item/dock item/whatever.
      - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
        What is the difference between having multiple pdf reader windows vs multiple browser windows then? If you are on a mac: cmd+` is your friend.
        TylerE 6y ago
        I only have one PDF window open.
      - alpaca128 6y ago
        On Windows this can easily be remedied in the options accessible via the taskbar. I always turn this off and tell it to show the full window titles instead of just the icons. Windows are not browser tabs, I don't ever have enough of them open to need that stacking behaviour.
        MaxBarraclough 6y ago
        Another option for Chrome/Windows is to open a Guest window or an Incognito window, which is treated as a separate window-group.
- rypskar 6y ago
  But do they remember your position in the PDF between restarts? I some times read books or lecture notes in PDF format, and dedicated programs works much better for that than the support in browsers
azinman2 6y ago
On the Mac (which this article is about), what do you use Foxit for that built in Preview.app can’t do?
- erichurkman 6y ago
  I still routinely encounter fillable forms that Preview.app can't handle, particularly with checkboxes or large text areas. It also frequently uses the wrong font in PDF forms meaning text doesn't fit in the prescribed form fields.
  - weiming 6y ago
    You can also overlay your own text in Preview, ignoring the PDF's own textbox.
    - erichurkman 6y ago
      That doesn't work for sites that then process filled PDF forms, unfortunately. And it incredibly time consuming for some forms that have dozens or more of checkboxes and fields to fill in.
  - pfranz 6y ago
    Does Foxit work for those and other edge cases? I've used Preview.app for years and only the past few months have encountered incompatible PDFs. I reluctantly downloaded Acrobat Reader. The PDF required a signature and locked the document for editing...that was annoying and not completely obvious.
    - abrogator 6y ago
      Just tried it. Foxit works with the fillable government forms that I have not been able to read for months because Preview won't display them. I agonized about installing Acrobat Reader, but Suspicious Package says it wants to run 88 install scripts. I don't feel like tracking down that much malware when I uninstall it after filling out a form. Go Foxit!
behnamoh 6y ago
You basically can't do much with the free version. Here's the list of things you ave to pay for: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/pdf-reader-thanks.php?product=Foxit-Reader&platform=Mac-OS-X&version=4.0.0.0430&package_type=pkg&language=English&page= https://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/pdf-reader-thanks.ph...
spacechild1 6y ago
Foxit reader is quite decent and much faster than Acrobat
shrimp_emoji 6y ago
On Linux, Okular[0] offers some of paid Reader's functionality for free. c: 0: https://okular.kde.org/ https://okular.kde.org/
0x38B 6y ago
I haven't used it on Mac, but PDF Expert[1] from Readdle has been great on my iPad - I use it to both read and edit PDFs. It's fast and the UI is intuitive. 1: https://pdfexpert.com/ https://pdfexpert.com/
- abrogator 6y ago
  Just tried it. PDF Expert would not display the government fillable forms that Preview also will not display. The app offered to convert the PDFs if I would email them to PDF Expert, and suggested Adobe products as an alternative. Nice try, but Foxit displayed the PDFs and allowed me to fill in the fields.
garaetjjte 6y ago
For Windows, there's great SumatraPDF: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org

MaxBarraclough 6y ago

I used to recommend Foxit too, but all major browsers now ship with good PDF support.

saagarjha 6y ago
Not Safari.
- eric_h 6y ago
  How so? I have no problem opening PDF links directly in Safari.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Safari "supports PDF", but not well. The PDF viewer is run in an extremely janky view that clearly has not been updated in years. It runs out-of-process, but takes little advantage of the many advances in XPC rendering that have come in recent years; as such it cannot handle looking up services correctly, or vibrancy, or even have Retina support for its UI. And those are just visual: the PDF support itself is shoddy; it's unable to do many things that other browsers can do out-of-the-box (forms?), searching for text has been broken for the better part of a year. It's an obvious rough spot in Safari's otherwise polished interface.
    - eric_h 6y ago
      Fair criticism. I guess my bar for what I define as "good PDF support" is much lower than yours - I only generally read them or plug in a digital signature when signing my lease.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        Personally, I am loath to download documents. I actually like what iOS Safari does, which is run the generic document previewer on files inside the app itself. I hate clicking on a link on my computer and then getting a PPTX that I have to open in PowerPoint.
TylerE 6y ago
For me, not being in the browser is a feature, not a bug. I often want to be able to open a PDF in a dedicated window I can easily switch to.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  Sure, but you can open a PDF in a new browser window. I'd rather not broaden my trusted codebase by installing another PDF reader.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    OSs have this annoying habit of condensing multiple windows of a single application down to one taskbar item/dock item/whatever.
    - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
      What is the difference between having multiple pdf reader windows vs multiple browser windows then? If you are on a mac: cmd+` is your friend.
      - TylerE 6y ago
        I only have one PDF window open.
    - alpaca128 6y ago
      On Windows this can easily be remedied in the options accessible via the taskbar. I always turn this off and tell it to show the full window titles instead of just the icons. Windows are not browser tabs, I don't ever have enough of them open to need that stacking behaviour.
      - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
        Another option for Chrome/Windows is to open a Guest window or an Incognito window, which is treated as a separate window-group.
rypskar 6y ago
But do they remember your position in the PDF between restarts? I some times read books or lecture notes in PDF format, and dedicated programs works much better for that than the support in browsers

azinman2 6y ago

On the Mac (which this article is about), what do you use Foxit for that built in Preview.app can’t do?

erichurkman 6y ago
I still routinely encounter fillable forms that Preview.app can't handle, particularly with checkboxes or large text areas. It also frequently uses the wrong font in PDF forms meaning text doesn't fit in the prescribed form fields.
- weiming 6y ago
  You can also overlay your own text in Preview, ignoring the PDF's own textbox.
  - erichurkman 6y ago
    That doesn't work for sites that then process filled PDF forms, unfortunately. And it incredibly time consuming for some forms that have dozens or more of checkboxes and fields to fill in.
- pfranz 6y ago
  Does Foxit work for those and other edge cases? I've used Preview.app for years and only the past few months have encountered incompatible PDFs. I reluctantly downloaded Acrobat Reader. The PDF required a signature and locked the document for editing...that was annoying and not completely obvious.
  - abrogator 6y ago
    Just tried it. Foxit works with the fillable government forms that I have not been able to read for months because Preview won't display them. I agonized about installing Acrobat Reader, but Suspicious Package says it wants to run 88 install scripts. I don't feel like tracking down that much malware when I uninstall it after filling out a form. Go Foxit!

behnamoh 6y ago

You basically can't do much with the free version. Here's the list of things you ave to pay for: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/pdf-reader-thanks.php?product=Foxit-Reader&platform=Mac-OS-X&version=4.0.0.0430&package_type=pkg&language=English&page= https://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/pdf-reader-thanks.ph...

spacechild1 6y ago

Foxit reader is quite decent and much faster than Acrobat

shrimp_emoji 6y ago

On Linux, Okular[0] offers some of paid Reader's functionality for free. c: 0: https://okular.kde.org/ https://okular.kde.org/

0x38B 6y ago

I haven't used it on Mac, but PDF Expert[1] from Readdle has been great on my iPad - I use it to both read and edit PDFs. It's fast and the UI is intuitive. 1: https://pdfexpert.com/ https://pdfexpert.com/

abrogator 6y ago
Just tried it. PDF Expert would not display the government fillable forms that Preview also will not display. The app offered to convert the PDFs if I would email them to PDF Expert, and suggested Adobe products as an alternative. Nice try, but Foxit displayed the PDFs and allowed me to fill in the fields.

garaetjjte 6y ago

For Windows, there's great SumatraPDF: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org