Favourite PDF reader

Pick up your favourite pdf reader.
It should be a freeware.. usability is more important.

My priorities goes below

1> Speed
2> Text and Image Quality
3>Other Features.
4>license.

for me > PDF X Change viewer.

Adobe Reader = bloat.

foxit reader is light weight and fast..

G

foxit is good

ya i agree adobe reader is a bloat

Adobe reader is certainly a bloatware.Crashing from time to time and other problems.
For me it is only and only Foxit PDF reader.Simple ,fast and easy to use

yes.. adobe has several problems from version 5.

as far as i know, nobody use adobe.
but i would like to know what type(!) of people use adobe reader.
also adobe system does not care about end user ?

Foxit PDF reader

overall foxit pdf reader is the best one - it's small, have very little memory footprint and is very fast.

S

foxit is good.
But does it handle inbuilt videos?
I am not sure as downloaded a pdf file of 22 pages of plain text with some added videos. they were supposed to be guitar tabs. foxit could not play it. I have not tried adobe as I have long uninstalled it.

have you ever got this type of problem?

For general PDF file viewing Foxit is always the best

but for a multimedia pdf file with mixed contents like audio and video I like to use adobe pdf reader - it also has gpu acceleration - just enable it in options and see the zooming of a document will be smooth as butter.

Foxit... Never heard about PDF Xchange/sumatra ... Will surely give it a try...

Okular - A Document Reader for KDE 4.

^^ is this the best pdf reader for linux - it would be really great if you can name some other pdf readers for linux.

^ Evince is also quite good pdf reader for Linux.

Okular does the job for me and handles large pdfs quite well.

^^ thanks for informing

been using Adobe reader all the time. need to try foxit reader soon.

Fox it.
its gets installed in just less then 1 minute.
Opens PDF really fast. no waiting.
i didnt notice the Handtool in latest adobe reader which i always use in Foxit.

i would say best pdf editor as well.

topgear said:
^^ thanks for informing

X-Pdf is also good but a little simplistic inteface; not elegant though.

I've used that but Evince is avilable for windows too - right ?

@ vishalgmistry - just right click in anywhere on the document and select hand tool for Adobe pdf reader.

^I believe Evince is available for Windows too. Can you post a link for some multimedia embedded pdf so that i can test whether Okular supports it properly or not?

Download one from here :

Technology Review: TR35: Dries Buytaert, 29

Foxit PDF Reader...very light..looks great...no huge updates..perfect software...

Foxit rox it.

topgear said:
Download one from here :

Technology Review: TR35: Dries Buytaert, 29

Tried it with Okular but not supported

; it asked for Adobe Reader.

I have only 40GB in my Windows partition. So, I use Sumatra.

Using Foxit so far...can't remember when I last used Adobe Reader. Foxit is good, but sometimes the text gets garbled, i.e. a part of one word overlaps the next word. Have you guys faced such a problem?

^^ I've faced these minor glitch on the old versions of foxit and zooming into that portion solved the prob most of the time.

@ a_rahim - so for some multimedia content embedded pdf file we still need adobe acrobat reader and it's available for linux too - can you try with that ?

^Downloaded size for Linux:
Foxit : 3.5 MB
Acrobat Reader : 63 MB

What does that pdf do exactly? It just opens in fullscrean but doesnt do anythng? Tried in Okular and Foxit but not in Acrobat.

ico said:
I have only 40GB in my Windows partition. So, I use Sumatra.

whats the issue?
you could install it in the other drive?

Evince. I like it.

C

I also use Evince, it's the best

Ubuntu's default Evince document viewer.

foxit rocks... i liked the image copy feature of foxit.. with adobe i have to prnt screen and paste in paint and then blah blah steps...
with foxit.. just select the region and u r done.. the image is on ur clipboard....

Foxit is more innnnnnnovative ,fast and wats more.. its simple.

have you guys ever tried Nitro PDF reader ( it's has a pro version too ) - it has earned decent ratings in some magazines.

using foxit portable,lightweight&user friendly...

pdf x change is also good for clear visible of fonts and images..

I guess Foxit Reader is my choice. I used Adobe Reader for quite some time but then I realised I just couldn't waste 200MB of disk on a PDF reader. When I used Foxit, it was light-weight, easy to use and just felt good!!

_

Foxit's the best one. The ONLY issue I feel is that it 'sometimes' fails to open certain docs, for which I have to use Adobe Reader. But, it has happened to me maybe 4-5 times till date.

Foxit... It starts in an instant and that is what i need.

Foxit reader-best

Adobe reader- worst

R

I use Skim on my Macbook Pro.

Adobe is a full bloat, Foxit is good.

krishnandu.sarkar said:
Adobe is a full bloat, Foxit is good.

Foxit is also a bloat nowadays. Recently I downloaded Foxit 4.3 and the installer installed some toolbars and adware without my permission. I did not see any prompt in the installation process which asked for my permission for installing the adware. I double checked just to be sure and both the times Foxit installed the adware. I had to download the .msi file to install without ads. The exe installs the ads.

Also, I use JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie for some reading on certain topics. That website has a lot of PDF files as reading material. Foxit Reader was unable to select the text well in those PDFs. It did not allow me to make comments and notes on the PDFs without a headache due to the bad selection tool. The same problem occurred in some non-Jstor PDF files but most other PDFs worked well.

This made me abandon Foxit. It is as much a bloat as Adobe used to be and does not even work well.

I switched to PDF Xchange Viewer and my job got done smoothly. Hence, I recommend it. The install file is 17MB, but the software is fairly light and does the job well.

foxit 4 ships with toolbar & ebay link. now with ver5 it is removed i think. or it still packs those adwares?

using foxit & chrome.

R

Sam said:
foxit 4 ships with toolbar & ebay link. now with ver5 it is removed i think. or it still packs those adwares?

using foxit & chrome.

its removed in V5 but only problem with Foxit series is Size is increasing long back it used to b less than 1MB size and had all the features necessary

V5 is ~ 12MB size

but comparing to other Readers Foxit nice , i personally using it for long time

adobe only... best and very sophisticated tool for PDF
fox it doesn;t work perfect in printing... i have experienced..

T

I am irritated with Adobe Reader X with its useless annoying "preparing document" dialog box..My preference is Reader 7 or Foxit.

Foxit Reader, by a LONG shot.

Adobe reader. Didnt know others exist. Does a fine job so doesnt warrant a change.

Sumatra. Only 2MB.

I <3 Foxit... beyond words...
Love it so much, that I had integrated Foxit with Win XP SP3 installer! :-D

Sumatra

A

Well My favorite PDF Reader is Adobe Reader which is also the most popular PDF Reader . I like it very much .

M

1. Foxit
2. Adobe

topgear said:
For general PDF file viewing Foxit is always the best

but for a multimedia pdf file with mixed contents like audio and video I like to use adobe pdf reader - it also has gpu acceleration - just enable it in options and see the zooming of a document will be smooth as butter.

this is exactly why, i voted for Adobe in the poll!

Try Nitro PDF reader. Its a reader cum writer. So need for an additional software. Its feature rich but still faster than Adobe Reader.

Sumatra is awesome. Opens in a second. Take almost zero resources.
And its portable.

I haven't had any problems with adobe reader but it takes up a lot of resources.
Foxit on the other hand is good enough for most purposes and it takes a lot less memory, both RAM and hard disk. Never had a reason to try any other.

So Foxit. :wink:

S

Adobe Reader X still is miles ahead of the competition. With over 4 gb ram, who cares for system resources when not running graphics or games. Is there any other PDF reader on the planet which gives features like Read Aloud and Auto Scroll. And yes, adobe allows editing, commenting, etc unlike the past. See, no reason to persist with foxit now

^^ are you Sure Adobe Reader X offers editing features - pdf editing feature is only available in Adobe Acrobat X standard/pro/Acrobat X suite edition.

Adobe Acrobat Family | Product comparison

Adobe Acrobat reader is best if you want to take print out or reading multimedia embedded pdf files but for normal pdf files Foxit is still the winner.

Voted for Foxit.

S

Liverpool_fan said:
Foxit Reader any tym

Foxit is the best for ever....
It's Free,It's Never ever slow down your pc,and does'nt take more memory too.
:smile:

Foxit reader is best.

Wan to change mine.
LLPP is the best. Fast and very minimalist.

what's that LLPP thing ? Is it some sort of open source pdf reader for linux only or there's a windows variant available too.

llpp | freshmeat.net

Seems its available for windows too. I've only used the linux version. Its very fast but lacks features. Great for quickly opening PDFs.

^^ thanks

do I need to create a account to download this ? Can't find a download link for windows version.

I hate Adobe reader mainly due to the size and frequent heavy sized updates. Switched to Foxit only to have not so attractive UI (when compared to Adobe) and annoying ad right in the Window. I think it was using Orange or some other striking colour for ads. Removed it, now back on Adobe. Will try others.

Check Nitro PDF Reader and Expert PDF Reader. Feature rich but not that fast.

also you can try :

PDF-XChange Viewer free version ;-)

R

Foxit as simple as that.

Foxit reader anyday.

will change to FOXIT .

topgear said:
also you can try :

PDF-XChange Viewer free version

This is better than Foxit, which has been a let down in many ways I already mentioned in this thread.

Nitro PDF

Highlighter is essential for me in PDF reader .

If you want features, including the ability to create PDF files, get Nitro or Expert. For just a reader, look elsewhere.

Foxit Reader rules.
Now in majority.

I Use foxit because its light on system, and is good looking

Foxit Reader

i am using adobe reader x which came with my laptop along with rest of the bloatware.
you can fast i have been lazy to download Foxit since i already have adobe.
also foxit adds its watermark to printed documents which is a strict no no for me. otherwise its ok.

Gollum said:
also foxit adds its watermark to printed documents which is a strict no no for me. otherwise its ok.

What water mark? I dont even remember the time from when I am using Foxit. And I have seen no water mark!

if you want a crazy light and crazy fast READER then try muPDF.

here, i opened a single file across all the readers i could find and manually scrolled down to the end and the results are as follows :

1. muPDF
2. Sumatra pdf
3. Foxit
4. NitroPDF

an interesting note : when i just loaded the file, without scrolling to the bottom, the ram usage of both Foxit and mupdf were almost the same, but when i started scrolling below, the speed became slower in foxit.

also, nitropdf resembles a popular word processing software (no prizes for guessing who) and likewise, is bloated and slow, slowest of all four by far.

infact, i had only scrolled about 1/4 the way down, and i got bored and left it at that.

another note : mupdf is a bit different, it has no interface (all keys are hidden, controlled almost fully by keyboard) but more than makes it up in speed and lightness. those used to emacs/lynx/vim will be right at home. (yay for open source and hackers!!! )

cheers, now go on and fight it out.

For creating pdf, i use the MS office pdf-plugin

muPDF... looks good. Will try it for a few days.

Btw.. @doomgiver: Wow.. even your login name of Windows is same to the nick of you at TDF! Quite an identity!

@ doomgiver - thanks for letting us know about muPDF - will download and use it and post feedback ;-)

vineet369 said:
muPDF... looks good. Will try it for a few days.

Btw.. @doomgiver: Wow.. even your login name of Windows is same to the nick of you at TDF! Quite an identity!

thanks, i've been with this id for a long time, ever since i started playing games. but my brother copied the name for his email id in gmail

also, almost every guy at college knows me as doomgiver, coz i used to frag them in CS and pwn their heads in DotA

topgear said:
@ doomgiver - thanks for letting us know about muPDF - will download and use it and post feedback

no problem, i use it mostly for opening ebooks, for the rest, i use sumatra.

Foxit reader suite (have editor, reader, page organizer)

Adobe reader plugins often gave trouble in opening pdf in web browser. I've had no issues with Foxit.

R

Foxit in recent times has become quite shady, the new crappy interface and also it has started bundling toolbars with its installer....

My recommendation is: PDF-XChange Viewer.... :))

But wait, don't download the any main installer EXE, MSI from its website

From the download page, download the PORTABLE version.

Extract to any folder on your PC.

Delete all the files except the main executable # don't worry it works #,
and start the PDF-XChange viewer, which will ask you to set it as default viewer for PDF Files, click YES and enjoy...

Here are the download links
---------------------------------
Tracker Software Products :: Downloads
---------------------------------

Well, i don't generally use windows, but i keep an old version of foxit reader installed on win7. Earlier it was adobe pdf reader(upto version 6). But now, adobe is nothing but a crappy bloatware.

And the same goes to iTunes too.

I use Sumatra. Very light.

Foxit is the best. Been using Acrobat reader but it is too slow and not at all lightweight. Acrobat reader always updates eating away bandwidth.
Never heard of the rest though. :mrgreen:

^^ you can disable acrobat updates and if you have a beefy system running Acrobat reader should not be a big problem - it's main strength is in reading multimedia embedded pdf files though I do agree Foxit is super fast on most pcs ;-)

I used Foxit because it was lighter , but one day it didn;t show anything when i tried to open an important document, so since then i have only been using Adobe Reader

^^ You must have interrupted an update. Or else this doesn't happen!

have been using Adobe Reader till now. One annoying this is the frequent updates. I guess, i have updated Adobe reader more number of times than i actually used it.

after going through the posts, will be trying foxit.

Foxit is the best!!

foxit
gud one

Skynaveen said:
Foxit is the best. Been using Acrobat reader but it is too slow and not at all lightweight. Acrobat reader always updates eating away bandwidth.
Never heard of the rest though.

if you want lightweight, use sumatraPDF, or MuPDF, both are much lighter and faster than either acrobat or foxit

Kev.Ved said:
Foxit is the best!!

have you even read what has been posted so far?
also, its not a matter of being best.
if you want functionality, adobe acrobat or nitro pdf are good
if you want speed, and lightweight software, choose muPDF.

personally, i use sumatraPDF.

Foxit reader for me.very fast to load.
Rarely come across pdf files with multimedia so no adobe reader for me.

S

I know when this thread started I was going for foxit, but recently one bug/special feature drives me crazy in foxit. Safe reading mode is on by default. That makes clicking a link in pdf a chore.
This is nightmare for the pdf author's point of view, as average user does not care much to go into the details and switch off the safe reading mode as he/she is too scared to mess up with the default settings.
So thumbs down for foxit for me