How to change the background color in SumatraPDF reader?

Question

How to change the background color. I would like to change it to something easier to read, is there an option to change this anywhere?

Answer 1

If you run SumatraPDF with the command-line option -bg-color 0xffff99 it will launch SumatraPDF with the new background color, and save the background color as your default.

The 0xffff99 part is the hex code for a lighter yellow.

Alternatively, the following command line option can be used:

• -invert-colors

  Swaps text and background color for most documents

Refer to https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/wiki/Command-line-arguments for more information.

Refer to http://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/settings.html for more information regarding customizing colors in SumatraPDF-settings.txt (customizable by navigating to Menu -> Settings -> Advanced Settings)

Refer to https://i.imgur.com/tNwH6yj.gif to create a shortcut to always open SumatraPDF in this mode.

SumatraPDF website: http://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html

Answer 2

I found the solution. My setup is all black boarders and black start-up screen and total black in full-screen with white text.

Setting/Advanced Options, add line GradientColors to FixedPageUI then choose your hex color. Here is my setup for all black and white.

MainWindowBackground = #000000
EscToExit = false
ReuseInstance = false
UseSysColors = false
RestoreSession = true

FixedPageUI [
    TextColor = #ffffff
    BackgroundColor = #000000
    SelectionColor = #f5fc0c
    WindowMargin = 2 4 2 4
    PageSpacing = 4 4
    GradientColors = #000000
]

Answer 3

You can apply Windows theme to your document using SumatraPDF options dialog. So, if you're using nice background color in Windows, Sumatra will use it too (works perfectly for me in classic Windows theme).

Answer 4

There's a command line option to invert colors:

sumatrapdf.exe -invert-colors

Basically for black-text-on-white it will produce white-text-on-black, while making other colors still readable just by inverting them also (in PDF-Xchange on contrary, if there are e.g. gray boxes, their contents might become unreadable afterwards).

Additionally, there's -set-color-range option which is more general:

sumatrapdf.exe -set-color-range 0x00dd00 0x000000

This will produce green text on black background and scale other colors appropriately.

Documentation: http://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/wiki/CommandLineArguments https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/wiki/Command-line-arguments

Answer 5

This can now be changed in the "Settings->Advanced Options...", you just need to edit the "MainWindowBackground" entry near the top.

Answer 6

Go to 'Settings' > 'Advanced Options...' It will open SumatraPDF-settings.txt file in the text editor. Then change the hex value of BackgroundColor option under FixedPageUI or any other corresponding *UI section.

More details http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/settings.html

Answer 7

If you use dark theme for windows colors and want it used on SumatraPDF. Find SumatraPDF/SumatraPDF_settings.txt and one of the first lines UseSysColors can be changed from false to true.

Answer 8

Actually you are right about the fixed UI setting, but my version of sumatraPDF, kept the book colour yellow, even if app was black.

So, I looked at the file more closely and found this in ebook section :

UseFixedPageUI = false

I just set it to true to fix it. You have to do same for all instances where you want it to set a custom colour.

Answer 9

Unfortunately, I believe it's not possible.

The -bgcolor argument will only change the background color of the start-up screen.

Answer 10

To change background color in last version of SumatraPDF go to Settings -> Advanced Options, change - BackgroundColor option in FixedPageUI part. Like this:

FixedPageUI 
[
  TextColor = #000000 (change foreground text color)
  BackgroundColor = #f0f0f0 (change background color)
  SelectionColor = #f5fc0c
  WindowMargin = 1 0 1 0
  PageSpacing = 2 2
]