# Alternative to Adobe Reader



## ccc (Sep 25, 2010)

hi

I'm looking for alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader, a slim free PDF Reader with browser plugin, for seamonkey or firefox.


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## fronclynne (Sep 25, 2010)

I don't know about browser plugins, but graphics/xpdf is what I use.  It is very lightweight, and depends on little.

If you have a bunch of gtk/gnome stuff already, graphics/evince seems to work slightly better for certain large, multilayered pdfs.

Someone might suggest graphics/epdfview, which I've never used.


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## Beastie (Sep 25, 2010)

graphics/xpdf and graphics/epdfview. But I am not sure about the browser plugin. Xpdf is supposed to work with www/plugger, but I have never tried it.


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## wblock@ (Sep 25, 2010)

The browser plugin isn't necessary, you can set Firefox or other browsers to display PDF files with the viewer when it asks what application to use.  The only difference is it will be in a separate window.


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## fronclynne (Sep 25, 2010)

There's also this or that or t'other.

And that may only be the tip of the iceberg (Ð²ÐµÑ€Ñ…Ñ–Ð²ÐºÐ° Ð°Ð¹ÑÐ±ÐµÑ€Ð³Ð°).


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## aragon (Sep 25, 2010)

graphics/xpdf FTW.


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## graudeejs (Sep 25, 2010)

xpdf is better than epdfview.
I had some technical pdfs that epdfview wasn't rendering correctly.
xpdf was rendering them much better


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## aragon (Sep 25, 2010)

It's also surprisingly configurable.  Take a look at its configuration man page after installing it: xpdfrc(5).


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## UNIXgod (Sep 25, 2010)

okular is really nice. may depend on kde4 libs though.


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## phoenix (Sep 26, 2010)

Okular is great, but is a KDE4 app.  For those without KDE4 already installed, the deps may be too big.


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## sk8harddiefast (Sep 26, 2010)

I know xpdf but never used it.
Maybe I am doing wrong but I think that also gimp can preview pdf files as images


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## UNIXgod (Sep 26, 2010)

phoenix said:
			
		

> Okular is great, but is a KDE4 app.  For those without KDE4 already installed, the deps may be too big.



I agree it is definitely tied to a monolithic environment. None the less it is one of the nicer pdf viewers we have.

OP here are some links:

http://okular.kde.org/

seems like they have a no compete link as well off of that page with a list if alternatives:

http://pdfreaders.org/


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## wblock@ (Sep 26, 2010)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> seems like they have a no compete link as well off of that page with a list if alternatives:
> 
> http://pdfreaders.org/



graphics/mupdf and print/gv from that list are both in ports.  MuPDF is marked broken, yet built and ran for me.  Very little user interface.  Haven't tried gv yet.


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## sramaswamy (Oct 2, 2010)

Hi wblock,

Could you please tell us how you compiled graphics/mupdf?


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## wblock@ (Oct 2, 2010)

sramaswamy said:
			
		

> Hi wblock,
> 
> Could you please tell us how you compiled graphics/mupdf?



All I did was comment out the BROKEN= does not build line in the Makefile, just to see what the error was... but it built and worked.  Of course it could be dangerous/unsafe/problematic because it was marked broken in the first place.


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## Oko (Oct 2, 2010)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> xpdf is better than epdfview.
> I hag some technical pdfs that epdfview wasn't rendering correctly.
> xpdf was rendering them much better



Actually Xpdf is one of the buggiest peaces of the software with many different patches floating all around Internet. The only advantage of Xpdf over epdfview is PDF rendering library which is the heart of any PDF viewer. I share your opinion that Xpdf rendering library is far better than Poppler used by Epdfview and few other PDF viewers (mostly Gnome related). I think that Okular is using Poppler as a rendering library just like epdfview so it is the same thing under the hood. 

The best PDF rendering library by ten miles (open and close source included) is the one used by SumatraPDF viewer originally written for Windows. The library and a supper light PDF viewers are ported to Unix under the name *mupdf*. If you are a typical desktop users and expect more than just to see PDF documents *mupdf* might be little bit of shocker to you but if you are real Unix geek you will love it.  

As of the plug in for the browser that is really silly question. Depends on the browser you have to chose default PDF viewer among options or sometime even to write your own script to lunch PDF viewer (XXXterm).


P.S. I just noticed that *mupdf* is apparently broken on FreeBSD. Sorry, I use OpenBSD so I made recommendation based on my experience.


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## OH (Oct 3, 2010)

We're far from the original question now, but fot completeness sake I'll provide this link to the pr that describes the breakage, which apparently is i386-specific.


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## wblock@ (Oct 3, 2010)

OH said:
			
		

> We're far from the original question now, but fot completeness sake I'll provide this link to the pr that describes the breakage, which apparently is i386-specific.



There's a patch for version 0.7 in there, too.  But the 0.6 port works here, and I'm running i386...


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## graudeejs (Oct 22, 2010)

mupdf is updated to v0.7, so I checked it.... well, there is no search... that's a HUGE minus; also xpdf search seems to only support ascii strings


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## sramaswamy (Nov 2, 2010)

Hi killasmurf86

You can actually search the document by pressing / followed by the search text! Please read the manual at http://mupdf.com/ for more features. It is by far the best PDF reader I have found for the XFCE desktop environment as it has no QT4/GNOME or other unnecessary dependencies.


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## UNIXgod (Nov 2, 2010)

If you don't want to install one:

http://docs.google.com/viewer


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## DutchDaemon (Nov 2, 2010)

Yes, am a big fan of the Google viewer too


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## graudeejs (Apr 26, 2011)

This is pretty old thread, but anyway I wanted to share....

I've tried graphics/zathura and I quite like it....

I totally love it, when I'm working with TeXLive.
When I open pdf in zathura and then rebuild pdf, zathura will detect changes and update display 
It's totally great


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## vivek (Apr 26, 2011)

gnome has inbuilt tool called document viewer. It is slim and good tool. The only option I miss is a pdf editor as some stupid government website requires to send reports in PDF format. pdfedit just sucks x(


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## sk8harddiefast (Apr 26, 2011)

After tried xpdf just rocks


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## bbzz (May 4, 2011)

I went as far as trying Foxit with wine. Which, in fact, works very well. The quality seems to be better than some native viewers, and there's no 'chocking' when opening huge pdfs.


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## ccc (Sep 7, 2011)

*kpdf*

http://kpdf.kde.org/


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## YZMSQ (Sep 7, 2011)

ccc said:
			
		

> *kpdf*
> 
> http://kpdf.kde.org/


Kpdf is not maintained as actively as before, however,  and its offspring, okular, which is included in graphics/kdegraphics4, is recommended these days. :\


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## OH (Sep 8, 2011)

YZMSQ said:
			
		

> Kpdf is not maintained as actively as before, however,  and its offspring, okular, which is included in graphics/kdegraphics4, is recommended these days. :\



If you have a little patience, okular is getting its own port (graphics/okular). It will still depend heavily on kde4 components though...


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## YZMSQ (Sep 9, 2011)

OH said:
			
		

> If you have a little patience, okular is getting its own port (graphics/okular). It will still depend heavily on kde4 components though...


Good news, I won't mind heavy kde4 depedency. Okular is the best PDF reader I've met on Unix, personally.


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## YZMSQ (Oct 18, 2011)

Okular has got its own ports now: graphics/okular.


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## zeissoctopus (Oct 28, 2011)

Once I try graphics/mupdf, I love it over graphics/evince for less dependents.


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## YZMSQ (Oct 28, 2011)

zeissoctopus said:
			
		

> Once I try graphics/mupdf, I love it over graphics/evince for less dependents.


While the latter seems more functional and friendly, though I love the first either.


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## purgatori (Oct 28, 2011)

zeissoctopus said:
			
		

> Once I try graphics/mupdf, I love it over graphics/evince for less dependents.



Likewise. Although it doesn't always perform admirably when encountering certain documents (needs more work, I imagine), so sometimes I use xpdf.


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