PDF Viewer on Windows

I've tried Foxit and Adobe's reader, but I'm not satisfied with either. Foxit has update nagging for non-critical junk. Adobe PDF reader is bloatware. Are there other options you people like?

Hafthor

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 960

I think I've settled on gsview+ghostscript – Hafthor – 2010-02-27T00:51:00.373

1BTW: I'm now using the PDF viewer built in to Google Chrome. – Hafthor – 2010-12-22T17:49:15.683

Here is a very similar question from serverfault.com: http://serverfault.com/questions/21727/open-source-pdf-reader-for-windows-as-an-alternative-to-adobe-reader

– Tom Feiner – 2009-07-18T10:01:32.587

I tried quite a few. Latest foxit seems to be an adware, which will also install another service of theirs. Nitro is worse, it requires registration, & even then you dont get a straightforward installer (or u may from the temp folder), & also it runs some service at startup! It is the slowest I found. Nuance is just the same again, too intrusive. Docudesk deskpdf opens browser in the background, & worse it cant open many pdfs. I know there are some simple viewers which get the job done, but they all look a little archaic to my eyes. I kinda liked bluebeam vu - bulky a bit, but no other hassle. – nawfal – 2013-11-20T09:40:48.400

Answers

The Sumatra PDF Reader is VERY lightweight and works fine.

Stefan Thyberg

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 3 925

fantastic. Foxit and Adobe both has slowness switching tasks – Scott Weinstein – 2010-04-08T02:23:56.457

And it is able to read ePub & Mobi as well – Patrick Honorez – 2016-07-22T14:31:33.267

3nice! Never heard of it, but that is exactly the kind of app I was hoping existed. Thx! – Hafthor – 2009-07-15T07:31:55.603

1+1 doesn' have many features, but fast and clean! – Mercer Traieste – 2009-07-15T07:41:31.680

I always use Foxit Reader on Windows, but the builtin viewer on Linux.

I've never noticed any nagging for updates. Perhaps there's an option to disable it? If not, try configuring your firewall to block network access for Foxit.

If you are indeed using Linux, take a look at Evince for Gnome or Okular for KDE. Both are general document viewers that understand other file formats, too.

Nikhil Chelliah

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 1 028

Evince is also available for Windows. I just installed it to replace sumatra because of its "copying text was denied" anti-feature. – hlovdal – 2015-01-05T09:31:18.847

5foxit has become slow. Full of adware, but worst - it's slow – Scott Weinstein – 2010-04-08T02:25:19.670

@Scott: That's not something I can say I've noticed. What version is giving adware bother? – Matt Ellen – 2010-12-19T22:19:55.993

5he mentioned he does not like Foxit. – icelava – 2009-07-15T07:54:44.923

Indeed, but since pavsaund and I both said we haven't observed the nagging, I'd think there are ways of getting around it. And, as many have said, Foxit is pretty slick. – Nikhil Chelliah – 2009-07-15T08:06:27.297

Personally I highly recommend SumatraPDF as Stefan does, due to it being

small
fast
open source

I have yet to see a document that it doesn't render despite how small it actually is.

Thor

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 3 562

Check out Sumatra or PDF-XChange

You're options are fairly limited.

You may also want to look at the Wikipedia article on this very topic

Mark Turner

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 901

+1 PDF-XChange is highly configurable, good for things like adding comments, marking some texts / fragments etc. You can also add search engines like Wikipedia, translators and do search on right click. It changed the way I interact with PDFs. – jakub.g – 2011-09-22T17:23:44.867

+1 thx, I should have known Wikipedia would have a comprehensive page on the subject – Hafthor – 2009-07-15T07:35:04.270

I've been extremely satisfied with Foxit Reader. I've had it installed and running for the past few months and haven't noticed the nagging abiut update's you mention.

pavsaund

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 2 660

I use Google Chrome ! It has a built in PDF reader that is OK for reading and printing, loads in a snap and using it you have less soft to install.
To enable it if you have CHrome installed, just right click any PDF, select Open with... and select CHrome choose to remember your selection. CHrome is now your default PDF reader.

Patrick Honorez

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 574

I'm entirely with you on this. No annoying toolbars, good search function, having my local pdf's, online pdf's and websites I'm reading in one and the same place. – tubbie – 2019-02-23T19:51:22.433

CutePDF has done it for me - it doesn't only read pdf but alse edits and creates them

Maniac13

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 118

I just installed the Nitro PDF Reader beta yesterday, and it looks pretty good:

Create PDF files, comment and review, save PDF forms, extract text and images, type text directly onto the page, and more.

Start working with PDF files the way you always wanted.

Their Features & Tour pages sound fantastic.

Ed Brannin

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 243

A good site to visit for a list of free PDF readers, with convenient download links, is http://pdfreaders.org/. As they are all free, you can just try each until you find one that suits you.

Stewart

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 131

OK, for completeness let me mention another one then: MuPDF. Brought to you by artofcode LLC & Artifex Inc. -- the same people that develop Ghostscript.

Open Source as preferred by some people,
multiplatform (Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, ...soon maybe Android, iPhone too?),
very lightweight (see screenshots below) --
the highly-rated SumatraPDF from the accepted answer uses MuPDF as its internal rendering engine,
full Unicode support,
very fast,
secure as you would wish (no JavaScript support),
very surely not bloated with features,
doesn't need "installation", is just an *.exe -- runs even from USB thumbdrives,
not displaying adds (unless you deem the copyright notice in the "About" screen as one...),
nicely looking and easy to use....
hmmm, decide yourself: the interface is very simple (keyboard navigation only, no menues or icons):

MuPDF: very simple GUI -- this is all the GUI it has. MuPDF: keyboard navigation only, no menues or icons.

Kurt Pfeifle

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 10 024

mupdf first created in linux :P It's really nice to see it in windows :) – Dzung Nguyen – 2011-06-04T07:30:22.890

@nXqd: AFAIK, mupdf was multiplatform from Day 1. – Kurt Pfeifle – 2011-06-04T11:38:55.780

To turn off automatic updates in Foxit Reader, select Menu - Help - Check for Updates Now. A window should appear with "Preferences" button, click it and uncheck "Automatically check for Foxit Updates".

Odin

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 121

I myself using sumatra but for someone doesn't know about Google-Chrome newest version has built in pdf viewer. If you don't need fancy stuffs like navigation pane or highlight, you can set default program for pdf is your browser - Google Chrome :)

Dzung Nguyen

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 1 351

I personally recommend PDF-XChange Viewer. It is blazingly fast even for big files and - as my personal highlight - uses tabs for loading multiple documents into the same window.

However, I experienced a crash while browsing one specific document that the Adobe Reader processes flawlessly. I'm not sure what this says about general stability.

Uwe Honekamp

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 867

At the moment I am using Sumatra but I think Foxit Reader is better. However they completely filled Foxit with bloat in version 3 so I recommend finding an installation for an early version 2 release.

I've had problems rendering some documents with Sumatra. (2 out of ~30)

kaba

Posted 2009-07-15T07:26:00.420

Reputation: 373