May 21, 2021

Linux PDF file viewers

For many years I have used Adobe Acroread, but it has some minor issues and you are sort of on your own to install version 9.5.5 (from 2013). Then in 2021 a document (a 50 page datasheet for an i2c chip) showed up that acrobat refused to open, saying I needed a newer version of the reader.

I decided to test fly various open source linux viewers to see what my options are. If you want to antique reader from Adobe, read my notes here.

  • Acroread (circa 2013) for linux There are other PDF viewers available (typically multiplatform, free but not open source), but I chose not to look at these. Anything I tried could simply be installed on Fedora (Fedora 33 at the time of this writing) using a single DNF command, i.e. 
    dnf install mupdf
    Here are my evaluations with my favorites at the top and worst at the end. As a test case I am using a single page huge PDF which is 92M in size and 2626 by 3559 pixels. This is a bit different than many peoples use case in viewing documents. It is important to me, and pushes some viewers over the edge. It definitely shows which viewers are fast or slow.

    I also used a 59 page datasheet for an i2c chip (that acroread refuses to display).

    After about a year of experience (mostly with Okular), my overall recommendation is Atril. Okular was fine for gigantic maps, but always wanted to hog the entire screen. I particularly liked the lean mean and fast behavior of Mupdf and especially for my big maps, it is a great choice, but I don't find myself using it, maybe I should

    Mupdf

    This is my choice for maps, though Okular may have advantages for documents.

    This viewer is very fast and immediately gives me a view of my entire map. It offers no menu, so you have to hunt around to learn some keyboard shortcuts, but once you learn those, it is again very fast and simple. Here are a few: 

    + and - zoom (look for + on your numeric keypad)
Z returns you to a full view
[] rotate clockwise or counterclockwise
    Note that typing "F1" will give you a cheat sheet.

    It is fast and lean as a document reader. The mouse wheel jumps page by page which I like, but it doesn't show a table of contents on the left. If you want a table of contents, you need mupdf-gl - or so they say.

    Mupdf-gl

    This is opengl based rather than X11 based, so it migh be even faster, but it has not knocked me over. The claim was this would show a table of contents, but I have yet to see it do so for a PDF file.

    So I still use Mupdf. Three less keystrokes.

    Qpdfview

    Not as fast as mupdf, but no unpleasant surprises. It does have menus, so you don't have to go searching to learn the keyboard shortcuts. I prefer mupdf because of its speed, but this is a close runner up.

    As a document viewer, it certainly works, but open up a needlessly wide window with a bunch of blank space and does not show a table of contents. The mouse wheel moves smoothly through the document. I would prefer the mouse wheel to move page by page.

    Okular

    If Mupdf didn't exist, I might use this. I did for quite a while, but it insists on hogging the whole screen. This might be fine for some people, but I have a 43 inch display and there is almost never any benefit for the full screen behavior. I have switched to Atril.

    It starts up and gives me a zoomed view of the map in whatever it thinks is a "standard size" window, but it gives me a thumbnail showing the whole things and I can use that to move around. A reasonable starting point for a big document like this. There are no publicized shortcuts for rotation and the developers have a bad attitude about adding them, which is a bad sign. They clearly don't deal with maps like I do and think they know better than their users.

    It seems to make a nice document viewer. It does show the table of contents. The mouse wheel moves smoothly through the document. I would prefer the mouse wheel to move page by page. Page up and page down do what I want, so given that this shows the table of contents this might be my top choice for a document (not map) viewer.

    Atril

    This is what I am now using for documents and I like it a lot for the usual document. For big maps (which are what led me to work up this page) it doesn't do so well and either Okular or maybe MuPDF are better choices).

    Allegedly this was forked from Evince at some point, and seems to be somewhat of an improvement. But it is still slow. I can scroll up and down using the mouse wheel, but scrolling lef/right is a mystery. It only shows part of my map at startup, so I have to fiddle to get a big enough window and then tell it to fit the entire map inside.

    The big advantage over evince is a reasonable set of menus at the top of the screen, which significantly enhances usability.

    As a document reader, it seems usable. You do get a table of contents if there is one, page thumbnails if there is not. You do get a reasonable first display of the document. Why these readers don't default to "fit page" on startup I will never know.

    Evince

    Slow, does not show me the full map on start up. It is sometimes buggy locking up altogether. The interface is not intuitive. I see no reason to use this.

    You get a bunch of rubbish at the top of the screen, but none of the menus that you expect and want.

    As a document reader, it seems no better or worse than Atril, so I would use Atril, given that Evince has known buggy behavior at times.

    Zathura

    A complete loser. All I get is a black window with the message "no name". I get this whether I try to look at a map or a "normal" document. Who knows?

    Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

    Adventures in Computing / tom@mmto.org