5 ms·

Good riddance, I guess? I believe there isn't any shortage of good PDF viewers for GNU/Linux.

scrollaway 12y ago
Yeah, not exactly sad about this one. PDF being an open spec, the closed source acrobat reader is completely irrelevant to the Linux world (if not entirely harmful to newcomers to linux who go and find the only PDF reader they ever knew about).
- tobias2014 12y ago
  I still use it to fill out PDF files with forms. What other linux PDF viewer can do that? I heard that KDE/Okular can do it, is there any KDE independent software that can do it?
  - brwtx 12y ago
    I use Gimp to to edit PDF files. Works amazingly well.
  - lake99 12y ago
    I use both Okular and Google Chrome for filling PDF forms.
  - sho_hn 12y ago
    Define "KDE-independent" - Okular works fine on other Linux desktops (it's also set up as the default PDF reader on my Windows 8 install, actually).
  - aw3c2 12y ago
    Evince does it.
  - dingaling 12y ago
    None that handle digital signatures and online filing, sadly. For example UK HMRC tax returns must be done using Adobe Reader.
- seba_dos1 12y ago
  Some Adobe Air apps, like the one to fill the tax forms in Poland, require Adobe Reader for form support.
- spo81rty 12y ago
  Isn't this type of attitude what holds Linux back from being a viable desktop OS? Average consumers would want popular apps that they know. How is that harmful? Just because Linux is open source, doesn't mean every app on it has to be. It needs popular apps to ever be a real desktop OS. No different than why Windows phone OS struggles today.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    > Just because Linux is open source, doesn't mean every app on it has to be No, but every app being open source (or rather Free Software, which is usually the case) can be supported easily by communities of users who can then bring it to tons of different architectures. That's why you get Evince on ARM, for example, and not the official Adobe Acrobat Reader.
    - mangecoeur 12y ago
      But on the other hand, every app is just as free to be disregarded by a community of developers even if there is still lots of end users who need it. Or for the software to never reach the level required by intense professional use. Or a understaffed and underfunded community that provides a critical but unsexy part of the infrastructure coughheartbleedcough.
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        >But on the other hand, every app is just as free to be disregarded by a community of developers even if there is still lots of end users who need it. The problem is not unique to open-source software.
        mangecoeur 12y ago
        this is true, but if you are going enterprise-grade you at least will sign an x-years support contract. If there are lots of end users for desktop software then it should in theory be profitable for a company to keep making it, rather than being dependent on volunteers to stay interested.
xavixavi 12y ago
What PDF readers on linux are 'best recommended'? I compared acroread with evince and kpdf in the past and found that acroread was the most parsimonious in use of resources (especially RAM on large documents). Have not repeated the comparison recently, so will be glad to hear about recommendations with more recent experiences with large documents with images.
- replax 12y ago
  Personally, i prefer "zathura". besides filling out forms it can do everything, with a very sleek ui and outstanding keybindings (vim-esque). I encourage you to try it :)
  - nextos 12y ago
    It's a fantastic piece of software. It can use different backends (mupdf or poppler) and it can also deal with DjVu files.
- falcor84 12y ago
  Firefox's builtin pdf.js reader has really matured and I switched to using it as my primary reader. It's even good enough for me to read books since it remembers the location I'm on, even if the browser process dies horribly.
- cturner 12y ago
  One that's easy to overlook - just open in google chrome.
  - fafner 12y ago
    I absolutely dislike the pdf viewer in Chrome. It fails at even the basic things a pdf reader should support. E.g., it lacks a concept of pages. You can't jump to a certain page. You can't even know the total number of pages. It doesn't support the pdf's TOC. For any pdf which contains more than one page it is therefore useless. I can't understand how the Google folks ever thought this was a good idea. I prefer Okular or Evince for Desktop viewing and pdf.js for in browser viewing. pdf.js is a bit slow when loading the pdf. But the user interface is quite nice in my opinion.
captainmuon 12y ago
Especially for enterprise uses, there are a bunch of things that are only implemented in Adobe Reader, especially when it comes to forms, interactive elements, workflow etc. PDF is only open in the sense that .docx and other MS Office formats are open - there is a spec, and you are allowed to implement it, but it is almost impossible to implement 100% of the features. Programs like Evince (Poppler) and Sumatra have come a long way. They are really excellent and read 95% of PDFs, many even faster and with less RAM usage than Adobe, and almost 100% of static PDFs ("print to PDF"). But for the occasional PDF form, if I don't want to print it and fill it out by hand, I have to use Adobe (Poppler sometimes gets the font size wrong so you don't see when you are overflowing a field, code that checks whether you filled it out correctly doesn't work, and highlighting that tells you which fields are for what kind of user to fill out is also often messed up). Actually what I just do is to run Adobe Acrobat Pro in wine, which allows me to actually save arbitrary filled out forms. Finally, one ironic benefit of the Adobe Reader is that it is distributed in binary form. If you are stuck on a Linux distribution a few versions back, you can just download and extract it to your home directory and run it from there. I realize that from-source or package manager purists might cringe at that thought, but it actually saved me a couple of times when I just had to print out a stubborn PDF (and couldn't ask the admin to kindly update my distribution at work...).
- abhgh 12y ago
  "there are a bunch of things that are only implemented in Adobe Reader" this is actually accurate (for ex how many know that the reader has a Javascript execution engine integrated into it?) - when people say that there are other free 'alternatives' anyway, most miss out on this fact. Like you mentioned, good alternatives cover 95% of the use-cases, so almost no one discovers this by hitting a wall.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    >for ex how many know that the reader has a Javascript execution engine integrated into it? I always treated that as a bug, not a feature, and prefer non-adobe readers even on Windows.
xioxox 12y ago
Unfortunately I have to correct page proofs of papers back from scientific publishers using Adobe Reader. This is going to make things tricky unless I have a WIndows machine.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
UK government use some PDF forms that use Acrobats digital signatures and won't work properly on anything else I've tried. Don't know why they didn't create them as web forms/apps in the first place however.
- robin_reala 12y ago
  Not for long. As of this week the official government line is that forms should be implemented on the web rather than in PDFs.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    Any idea if PAYE real time will be rewritten to avoid using Adobe behind the scenes then?
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >Don't know why they didn't create them as web forms/apps in the first place however. Vendor lock-in?
davexunit 12y ago
Good riddance indeed. We don't need Adobe's proprietary software.

Yeah, not exactly sad about this one. PDF being an open spec, the closed source acrobat reader is completely irrelevant to the Linux world (if not entirely harmful to newcomers to linux who go and find the only PDF reader they ever knew about).

tobias2014 12y ago
I still use it to fill out PDF files with forms. What other linux PDF viewer can do that? I heard that KDE/Okular can do it, is there any KDE independent software that can do it?
- brwtx 12y ago
  I use Gimp to to edit PDF files. Works amazingly well.
- lake99 12y ago
  I use both Okular and Google Chrome for filling PDF forms.
- sho_hn 12y ago
  Define "KDE-independent" - Okular works fine on other Linux desktops (it's also set up as the default PDF reader on my Windows 8 install, actually).
- aw3c2 12y ago
  Evince does it.
- dingaling 12y ago
  None that handle digital signatures and online filing, sadly. For example UK HMRC tax returns must be done using Adobe Reader.
seba_dos1 12y ago
Some Adobe Air apps, like the one to fill the tax forms in Poland, require Adobe Reader for form support.
spo81rty 12y ago
Isn't this type of attitude what holds Linux back from being a viable desktop OS? Average consumers would want popular apps that they know. How is that harmful? Just because Linux is open source, doesn't mean every app on it has to be. It needs popular apps to ever be a real desktop OS. No different than why Windows phone OS struggles today.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > Just because Linux is open source, doesn't mean every app on it has to be No, but every app being open source (or rather Free Software, which is usually the case) can be supported easily by communities of users who can then bring it to tons of different architectures. That's why you get Evince on ARM, for example, and not the official Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  - mangecoeur 12y ago
    But on the other hand, every app is just as free to be disregarded by a community of developers even if there is still lots of end users who need it. Or for the software to never reach the level required by intense professional use. Or a understaffed and underfunded community that provides a critical but unsexy part of the infrastructure coughheartbleedcough.
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      >But on the other hand, every app is just as free to be disregarded by a community of developers even if there is still lots of end users who need it. The problem is not unique to open-source software.
      - mangecoeur 12y ago
        this is true, but if you are going enterprise-grade you at least will sign an x-years support contract. If there are lots of end users for desktop software then it should in theory be profitable for a company to keep making it, rather than being dependent on volunteers to stay interested.

xavixavi 12y ago

What PDF readers on linux are 'best recommended'? I compared acroread with evince and kpdf in the past and found that acroread was the most parsimonious in use of resources (especially RAM on large documents). Have not repeated the comparison recently, so will be glad to hear about recommendations with more recent experiences with large documents with images.

replax 12y ago
Personally, i prefer "zathura". besides filling out forms it can do everything, with a very sleek ui and outstanding keybindings (vim-esque). I encourage you to try it :)
- nextos 12y ago
  It's a fantastic piece of software. It can use different backends (mupdf or poppler) and it can also deal with DjVu files.
falcor84 12y ago
Firefox's builtin pdf.js reader has really matured and I switched to using it as my primary reader. It's even good enough for me to read books since it remembers the location I'm on, even if the browser process dies horribly.
cturner 12y ago
One that's easy to overlook - just open in google chrome.
- fafner 12y ago
  I absolutely dislike the pdf viewer in Chrome. It fails at even the basic things a pdf reader should support. E.g., it lacks a concept of pages. You can't jump to a certain page. You can't even know the total number of pages. It doesn't support the pdf's TOC. For any pdf which contains more than one page it is therefore useless. I can't understand how the Google folks ever thought this was a good idea. I prefer Okular or Evince for Desktop viewing and pdf.js for in browser viewing. pdf.js is a bit slow when loading the pdf. But the user interface is quite nice in my opinion.

captainmuon 12y ago

Especially for enterprise uses, there are a bunch of things that are only implemented in Adobe Reader, especially when it comes to forms, interactive elements, workflow etc. PDF is only open in the sense that .docx and other MS Office formats are open - there is a spec, and you are allowed to implement it, but it is almost impossible to implement 100% of the features. Programs like Evince (Poppler) and Sumatra have come a long way. They are really excellent and read 95% of PDFs, many even faster and with less RAM usage than Adobe, and almost 100% of static PDFs ("print to PDF"). But for the occasional PDF form, if I don't want to print it and fill it out by hand, I have to use Adobe (Poppler sometimes gets the font size wrong so you don't see when you are overflowing a field, code that checks whether you filled it out correctly doesn't work, and highlighting that tells you which fields are for what kind of user to fill out is also often messed up). Actually what I just do is to run Adobe Acrobat Pro in wine, which allows me to actually save arbitrary filled out forms. Finally, one ironic benefit of the Adobe Reader is that it is distributed in binary form. If you are stuck on a Linux distribution a few versions back, you can just download and extract it to your home directory and run it from there. I realize that from-source or package manager purists might cringe at that thought, but it actually saved me a couple of times when I just had to print out a stubborn PDF (and couldn't ask the admin to kindly update my distribution at work...).

abhgh 12y ago
"there are a bunch of things that are only implemented in Adobe Reader" this is actually accurate (for ex how many know that the reader has a Javascript execution engine integrated into it?) - when people say that there are other free 'alternatives' anyway, most miss out on this fact. Like you mentioned, good alternatives cover 95% of the use-cases, so almost no one discovers this by hitting a wall.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >for ex how many know that the reader has a Javascript execution engine integrated into it? I always treated that as a bug, not a feature, and prefer non-adobe readers even on Windows.

xioxox 12y ago

Unfortunately I have to correct page proofs of papers back from scientific publishers using Adobe Reader. This is going to make things tricky unless I have a WIndows machine.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

UK government use some PDF forms that use Acrobats digital signatures and won't work properly on anything else I've tried. Don't know why they didn't create them as web forms/apps in the first place however.

robin_reala 12y ago
Not for long. As of this week the official government line is that forms should be implemented on the web rather than in PDFs.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Any idea if PAYE real time will be rewritten to avoid using Adobe behind the scenes then?
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
>Don't know why they didn't create them as web forms/apps in the first place however. Vendor lock-in?

davexunit 12y ago

Good riddance indeed. We don't need Adobe's proprietary software.