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#1 2008-09-11 09:18:45

orjanp
Member
From: Tromsoe, Norway
Registered: 2004-07-03
Posts: 347

Good PDF reader.

I'm searching after a good pdf reader. I have some requirements.

It should not depend on KDE or Gnome.
It should remember the witch page I was on when I open the pdf file again.
It should have 'modern' look.
Is should feel fast.

I have tested the following ones with a 8MB document.

Acroread - Does not remember the last position.
Xpdf - Slow, looks awful and does not remember last position.
Epdfview - Slow and does not remember last position.
KPDF/Okular - KDE dependent.

The best one at the moment is Okular. Since I already have KDE stuff installed. But I want to get rid of KDE.

Does anyone have other PDF readers? Seems like there is no really good ones out there. (Add it to my already to long project list. Create a lightweight, good looking(skinnable) GUI, fast pdf reader, that also remember the last position of the pdf file, and does not depend on KDE or Gnome. smile)


Ørjan Pettersen

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#2 2008-09-11 10:10:15

wuischke
Member
From: Suisse Romande
Registered: 2007-01-06
Posts: 630

Re: Good PDF reader.

I propose evince, although it depends on some parts of gnome.

Last edited by wuischke (2008-09-11 10:10:56)

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#3 2008-09-11 10:13:34

finferflu
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From: Manchester, UK
Registered: 2007-06-21
Posts: 1,899
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Re: Good PDF reader.

I am afraid there is not much choice there, evince is the only one you have not mentioned, but it obviously depends on GNOME.


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#4 2008-09-11 11:59:36

apaige
Member
Registered: 2008-06-15
Posts: 96

Re: Good PDF reader.

Uh… you call xpdf slow, but not the bloated to death Acrobat Reader?

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#5 2008-09-11 12:46:24

anespo
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-07-17
Posts: 39

Re: Good PDF reader.

evince has little dependence on gnome :

    * desktop-file-utils
    * gnome-icon-theme>=2.22.0 <-- Gnome dependency
    * gnome-keyring>=2.22.2 <-- Gnome dependency, need gconf and orbit2
    * gsfonts
    * libdjvu>=3.5.20
    * libglade>=2.6.2
    * libspectre>=0.2.0
    * poppler-glib>=0.8.3
    * shared-mime-info
    * t1lib
Evince is very good.

Last edited by anespo (2008-09-11 12:46:51)

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#6 2008-09-11 14:37:08

bwalk
Member
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 177

Re: Good PDF reader.

Why does evince need gnome-keyring? I bet you can patch this out to make it even more lightweight.

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#7 2008-09-11 14:46:39

mentallaxative
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From: Australia
Registered: 2008-07-14
Posts: 134
Website

Re: Good PDF reader.

This post reminded me of this: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=19105

I haven't tried it myself.

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#8 2008-09-11 14:48:00

thayer
Fellow
From: Vancouver, BC
Registered: 2007-05-20
Posts: 1,560
Website

Re: Good PDF reader.

...and Evince does remember last position.

Last edited by thayer (2008-09-11 14:48:15)


thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca

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#9 2008-09-11 22:03:26

gnud
Member
Registered: 2005-11-27
Posts: 182

Re: Good PDF reader.

EpdfView

Dependencies (4):
* gnutls>=2.4.1
* heimdal>=1.2-1
* libcups>=1.3.7-2
* poppler-glib>=0.8.3

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#10 2008-09-11 22:12:02

iBertus
Member
From: Greenville, NC
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 2,228

Re: Good PDF reader.

Geez... you're really picky when it comes to PDF readers. I would suggest evince for a reader, the GNOME deps are minimal. It's been improved alot recently and the newest version (when new GNOME is out) will support annotations.

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#11 2008-09-12 07:08:14

Army
Member
Registered: 2007-12-07
Posts: 1,784

Re: Good PDF reader.

I tried epdfview, but switched to evince, find it a lot better! evince-gtk from AUR works perfectly and it starts really fast. For me the best free pdf viewer together with kpdf / okular

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#12 2008-09-12 07:41:09

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: Good PDF reader.

Real men just look at binary and figure it out from there.....


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#13 2008-09-12 08:35:20

Army
Member
Registered: 2007-12-07
Posts: 1,784

Re: Good PDF reader.

Right!!!

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#14 2008-09-12 10:56:17

orjanp
Member
From: Tromsoe, Norway
Registered: 2004-07-03
Posts: 347

Re: Good PDF reader.

Thanks, I guess I will be using the binary look approach from now on. smile

iBertus:
Yes I'm picky. I'm very easily annoyed by irritating things when it comes to applications. So I'm striving for perfection.

apaige:
Bloted or not. When it comes to rendering pages, Acreread does it twice as fast as Xpdf. Xpdf start faster thou.

I did a simple test on startup time and jumping from page 1 -> 2 on a document. This is not very scientific, since there is a lot of variables. Had a few things running in the background.

The startuptest is done by loading the pdfreader with a pdf file from a terminal. It was no restart of the computer between the different readers, so the last ones might benefit from already loaded dependencies.

Jump from one page to the next is done with the reader in fullscreen and with the pdf page fit height. I did this mainly from page one to two. But the three last use preloading of the pages, so I had to jump fast down until I came down to a page that was not preloaded.

Here is the file used.

The result.

xpdf,   startup: 6.4 sec,   load page 1 -> 2: 4.0 sec
acroread,   startup: 11.5 sec,   load page 1 -> 2: 1.8 sec
epdefview,   startup: 26.7 sec,   load page: 2.2 sec
okular,   startup: 13.5 sec,   load page: 1.3 sec
evince,   startup: 17.9 sec,   load page: 1.1 sec

So, both Okular and Evince are very good readers. The only problem is the KDE/Gnome dependencies making them both slow starters. The second start will be fast since things already have been loaded. So one of them will be my preferred reader for now.

Last edited by orjanp (2008-11-11 14:36:51)


Ørjan Pettersen

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#15 2008-09-12 15:30:33

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: Good PDF reader.

orjanp,

The document you posted above takes less than two seconds to load in evince (2.23.92 with gnome-keyring disabled) on my box. It's not the first time I've launched evince today though. Also, I should mention that this is a fast machine with a good amount of memory.

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#16 2008-09-12 16:26:34

orjanp
Member
From: Tromsoe, Norway
Registered: 2004-07-03
Posts: 347

Re: Good PDF reader.

Yes. The second time it is launched, it will of course go much faster as I stated in my last paragraph. Since there is a lot of dependencies that already have been loaded. But the test is done as first time run.

My box is a Thinkpad T30 with a 2GHz mobile Intel Pentium 4 processor. It has 1GB of RAM. I guess I don't have to tell that I don't run either KDE nor Gnome, but Fluxbox.


Ørjan Pettersen

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#17 2008-09-13 01:42:40

Phrodo_00
Member
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2006-04-09
Posts: 342
Website

Re: Good PDF reader.

bwalk wrote:

Why does evince need gnome-keyring? I bet you can patch this out to make it even more lightweight.

probably because of gio magic.

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#18 2008-09-13 03:51:20

freakcode
Member
From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2007-11-03
Posts: 410
Website

Re: Good PDF reader.

I love those threads like:

I want a featureful application (a), that reinvents the whell all by itself and doesn't depend on any libraries (b), and is also blazing fast and doesn't use more than <inset acceptable memory threshold here> (c). (Didn't even mention it needs to be free, but if you're using Linux we assume this already)

I'm afraid you won't find your perfect software, because (a) conflicts with (b), (b) conflicts with (c), and (c) conflicts with (a). big_smile

Last edited by freakcode (2008-09-13 03:51:56)

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#19 2008-09-13 04:06:01

userlander
Member
Registered: 2008-08-23
Posts: 413

Re: Good PDF reader.

orjanp wrote:

My box is a Thinkpad T30 with a 2GHz mobile Intel Pentium 4 processor. It has 1GB of RAM. I guess I don't have to tell that I don't run either KDE nor Gnome, but Fluxbox.

evince used to be buggy and have a serious lag, but since the past 6-12 months I guess something was fixed and now it's much better.

I have a 1.5Ghz Thinkpad with 1gb ram and running XFCE4, and evince has good speed. I think that's the best choice right now (adobe sux tongue).

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#20 2010-06-17 13:08:31

bravebug
Member
From: Moscow
Registered: 2009-07-11
Posts: 7

Re: Good PDF reader.

Thread is old. But for people who search this tool I want to offer «mupdf». There is in AUR.
It very-very fast on start and in work, but don't have interface.

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#21 2010-06-27 21:42:43

kaikaizi
Member
Registered: 2010-05-11
Posts: 10

Re: Good PDF reader.

bravebug wrote:

Thread is old. But for people who search this tool I want to offer «mupdf». There is in AUR.
It very-very fast on start and in work, but don't have interface.

Thanks! It's really the very solution I wanted big_smile ! It's super fast, and eats very little mem compared to evince, and I can easily bind xfce Thunar with the pdf type, so that a double-click will do the work (no need to open up a terminal). The key bindings are also familiar (Space, Backspace, Ctrl-+/-, Ctrl-wheel etc), although now Im looking for a djvu reader.

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#22 2010-09-15 04:00:01

adamlogan
Member
Registered: 2010-01-29
Posts: 38

Re: Good PDF reader.

Thank you for mentioning mupdf. I love the fact that there is no gui taking up pdf real estate, just the document is visible. Rotation does not seem to work though maybe I'm missing something? Man page could probably be further clarified. IMO even no brainer things like arrow keys for scrolling should be clearly defined in the man page.

Last edited by adamlogan (2010-09-15 04:03:25)

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#23 2010-09-15 04:57:25

Noble
Member
Registered: 2010-06-01
Posts: 63

Re: Good PDF reader.

Try out apvlv, it looks fairly modern thanks to GTK-support, does not have many dependencies and even spots vim-bindings smile (Yes it remembers where you left off when reading a document )


Those who give up their liberty for security,
neither deserve liberty nor freedom,
and they will lose both.
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#24 2010-09-15 06:32:15

onearm
Member
From: Anywhere but here
Registered: 2006-07-06
Posts: 359
Website

Re: Good PDF reader.

I'm liking a lot zathura: gtk, poppler and cairo are the only dependencies, vim-like keybindings and does remember where you left (with :bmark). Very fast, obviously


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#25 2010-09-15 12:45:23

gorky
Member
From: Kraków, Poland
Registered: 2010-07-05
Posts: 96

Re: Good PDF reader.

Yes, I second this. zathura is certainly the best pdf viewer I've ever used - and I use it on a daily basis when working with LaTeX.

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