Stand-alone PDF viewers

[Billiam29]

Just asking to see if anyone would care to chime in on which stand-alone apps you may be using for PDF viewing and printing. I’m fine with just using browsers for ad-hoc viewing of PDFs that are posted online. Sometimes though I just want a full-fledged app for viewing larger documents and especially where printing is concerned.

Adobe Reader is a no-go for me for personal reasons. I’ve used Foxit reader and it worked just fine. Its UI experience was becoming a bit too bloated for my tastes though. I’ve also tried the open source Sumatra PDF reader. It’s a wee bit rough around the edges but it seemed to be OK. I’m just wondering if there are any other options I’m not aware of.

 

[CAcreeks]

Just asking to see if anyone would care to chime in on which stand-alone apps you may be using for PDF viewing and printing. I’m fine with just using browsers for ad-hoc viewing of PDFs that are posted online. Sometimes though I just want a full-fledged app for viewing larger documents and especially where printing is concerned.

Adobe Reader is a no-go for me for personal reasons. I’ve used Foxit reader and it worked just fine. Its UI experience was becoming a bit too bloated for my tastes though. I’ve also tried the open source Sumatra PDF reader. It’s a wee bit rough around the edges but it seemed to be OK. I’m just wondering if there are any other options I’m not aware of.

Evince on Linux worked well for me. It's almost as good as MacOS Preview, which I use now. Looks like there is a Windows build. No guarantees, I haven't tried it.

https://www.fosshub.com/Evince.html

As a full-fledged PDF editor to replace Acrobat, I liked Master PDF Editor over Qoppa.

P.S. Foxit might be better, but it doesn't run on Linux, so I didn't try it.

 

[Sagittarius]

Just asking to see if anyone would care to chime in on which stand-alone apps you may be using for PDF viewing and printing. I’m fine with just using browsers for ad-hoc viewing of PDFs that are posted online. Sometimes though I just want a full-fledged app for viewing larger documents and especially where printing is concerned.

Adobe Reader is a no-go for me for personal reasons. I’ve used Foxit reader and it worked just fine. Its UI experience was becoming a bit too bloated for my tastes though. I’ve also tried the open source Sumatra PDF reader. It’s a wee bit rough around the edges but it seemed to be OK. I’m just wondering if there are any other options I’m not aware of.

I am using Foxit PDF Viewer. Curios why do you find UI bloated. BTW it is quite customizable.

 

[Michael Arbor]

Just asking to see if anyone would care to chime in on which stand-alone apps you may be using for PDF viewing and printing.

Always seems to work for me. Might work for you, too.

Cheers... M :-D

 

[Billiam29]

I am using Foxit PDF Viewer. Curios why do you find UI bloated. BTW it is quite customizable.

I can’t say specifically what it was that was bothering me about the Foxit UI as the system I have with Foxit is actually at a different location from where I currently am.

I can tell you for certain though that the color scheme they switched to as a default definitely struck an “ewwww” chord with me. Like you said though, that may have very well been easily changed along with some other things I probably overlooked. The idea of UI customization just honestly never occurred to me for a PDF reader so I never bothered looking for such settings.

 

[ReedW]

I'm still using an old 9.x version of Foxit Reader. Several years ago I had upgraded, probably to a 10.x version, but went back to 9.x when I found out Foxit had removed the PDF printer functionality which I utilized frequently.

I often use the print to PDF functionality in browsers these days (usually from Brave, my default browser on all platforms) so I don't use Foxit Reader as much as I used to.

 

[atom14]

Billiam, for me, exactly as ReedW says below...

I'm still using an old 9.x version of Foxit Reader. Several years ago I had upgraded, probably to a 10.x version, but went back to 9.x when I found out Foxit had removed the PDF printer functionality which I utilized frequently.

...to here. The print functionality of Foxit is very [/Tick], but so is file creation.

I often use the print to PDF functionality in browsers these days (usually from Brave, my default browser on all platforms) so I don't use Foxit Reader as much as I used to.

To ReedW: Thanks for the info on Brave. I will have a look, although I never liked the Chrome interface and mostly (99.9% of the time) use Firefox. Additionally, I disabled the auto-update on Foxit :-|

atom14.

 

[SC489]

I just use Chrome or Edge. It's simple to view and select the pages to print.

 

[A J Fresnel]

I am using Okular. It comes from the linux world like Evince suggested by CAcreeks, but I find it so much better and full-featured that I install it everywhere. (I had a situation where a collaborator was using acrobat pro and send me a file with comments, and Evince could not show some of them, I think the caret ones. Okular was always 100% reliable.)

I install Okular on my Windows machines through the Microsoft store (only program I use that for), but they also have an installer on their website.

 

[ReedW]

Billiam, for me, exactly as ReedW says below...

I'm still using an old 9.x version of Foxit Reader. Several years ago I had upgraded, probably to a 10.x version, but went back to 9.x when I found out Foxit had removed the PDF printer functionality which I utilized frequently.

...to here. The print functionality of Foxit is very [/Tick], but so is file creation.

I often use the print to PDF functionality in browsers these days (usually from Brave, my default browser on all platforms) so I don't use Foxit Reader as much as I used to.

To ReedW: Thanks for the info on Brave. I will have a look, although I never liked the Chrome interface and mostly (99.9% of the time) use Firefox. Additionally, I disabled the auto-update on Foxit :-|

atom14.

Here's the link to the Brave browser site. Check it out and see what you think.

The browser that puts you first | Brave

The Brave browser is a fast, private and secure web browser for PC, Mac and mobile. Download now to enjoy a faster ad-free browsing experience that saves data and battery life by blocking tracking software.

brave.com

I was a long-time Firefox devotee but decided to give Brave a try a couple of years ago. Found that I really liked it and decided to use it going forward.

Brave has a number of options for turning off some of the site security and tracking features, and occasionally I need to modify them for a particular site to work correctly, but it general it's not an issue. There is one banking site I use that takes forever to load in Brave, and I usually switch to Firefox for that particular site.

I switched to the Duck Duck Go search engine to cut down on the amount of my data being tracked.

I also use a VPN frequently to cut down the amount of data my ISP can track.

There's no getting away from data collection by big tech, but the products above are a good step in the right direction.

 

[CAcreeks]

I am using Okular. It comes from the linux world like Evince suggested by CAcreeks, but I find it so much better and full-featured that I install it everywhere. (I had a situation where a collaborator was using acrobat pro and send me a file with comments, and Evince could not show some of them, I think the caret ones. Okular was always 100% reliable.)

I install Okular on my Windows machines through the Microsoft store (only program I use that for), but they also have an installer on their website.

Thanks for the recommendation of Okular, AJ.

One thing you can't do with browser-based PDF viewing is make annotations and comments. Evince can do that, and so can Okular, probably better.

 

[atom14]

I just use Chrome or Edge. It's simple to view and select the pages to print.

That's good - if that's all you want to do.

 

[Billiam29]

I just use Chrome or Edge. It's simple to view and select the pages to print.

That's good - if that's all you want to do.

In my experience, stand-alone PDF views are just generally a bit easier to deal with when it comes to viewing large PDF files of say 50+ pages.

Of greater concern is that my chosen primary browser Firefox inserts its standard headers and footers onto printed pages of PDFs just like it does when you print routine web page content. A behavior I very much do not want. If I need to change to another application to avoid that, then it may as well be a stand-alone PDF viewer and not another browser.

 

[Sagittarius]

I just use Chrome or Edge. It's simple to view and select the pages to print.

That's good - if that's all you want to do.

In my experience, stand-alone PDF views are just generally a bit easier to deal with when it comes to viewing large PDF files of say 50+ pages.

Of greater concern is that my chosen primary browser Firefox inserts its standard headers and footers onto printed pages of PDFs just like it does when you print routine web page content. A behavior I very much do not want. If I need to change to another application to avoid that, then it may as well be a stand-alone PDF viewer and not another browser.

In Firefox in print dialog box click on More settings and uncheck Print Headers and Footers box.

 

[SecondTimeAround]

Of greater concern is that my chosen primary browser Firefox inserts its standard headers and footers onto printed pages of PDFs just like it does when you print routine web page content. A behavior I very much do not want. If I need to change to another application to avoid that, then it may as well be a stand-alone PDF viewer and not another browser.

In Firefox in print dialog box click on More settings and uncheck Print Headers and Footers box.

Yep, if I understand the concern correctly, the solution seems as simple as that: