What are the best PDF viewers for Windows?

Question

UtilitiesWindowsProductivitySoftwarePDF

What are the best PDF viewers for Windows?

27

Options
Considered

394

User
Recs.

Jan 30, 2024

Last
Updated

21 Options Considered

Best PDF viewers for Windows	Price	License	Platforms
79 Sumatra PDF	Free	GPL-3.0-only	Windows
-- PDF-XChange Viewer	-	-	-
59 Foxit Reader	Free/Paid	Proprietary	-
55 Xodo PDF Reader & Editor	Free	-	-
-- KDE Okular	Free	GPL-2.0-or-later	Windows, MacOS, Linux (KDE), BSD

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score 155 · Answer 1

Sumatra PDF

Top Pro

Free and open source

Sumatra is available for free, licensed under GPL with source code available on GitHub. See More

Top Con

No annotation or editing facilities in the standard version

Requires the Pre-Release for editing annotations such as Highlights or Comments. See More

CommunicativeAlthaea's Experience

Works great for everything PDF, PS, DJVU, CHM, and on and on. It's lightweight, always starts, and displays everything perfectly. It is the perfect viewer if you are looking for something lightweight that can handle a lot of document types. See More

Specs

License:GPL-3.0-only

Platforms:Windows

Top Pro

Starts quickly

Top Con

Does not handle XFA editable forms

See no exploitable features. See More

Slanter's Experience

Light weight and easy to use. See More

Top Pro

Multilingual

It's available in 69 languages. See More

Top Con

Windows or ReactOS only

However, it works perfectly via Wine in Linux. See More

HumbleAstraea's Experience

Simple interface and super fast! See More

Top Pro

Low resource usage

Top Con

Fonts are not smooth enough

Not as smooth as e.g. Adobe Reader. MuPDF anti-aliasing is not configurable. See More

PrincipledHeracles's Experience

Simple and elegant! See More

Top Pro

Light weight

Top Con

Lacking exploitable features

Sumatra aims for simplicity at the expense of functionality. For example, there's no way to fill in XFA form PDFs with user tracking entries nor edit them. Simple files that track a user IP whilst reading a page do not work. See More

SophisticatedAtaguchu's Experience

Very fast .pdf and book reader. See More

Top Pro

Portable

The application consists of a single file that can be run without installation. You can put it on an external device, such as an USB thumb stick and run it on any Windows machine from the thumb stick. If you chose the installer version you can chose options to include previewer with the basic ability to scroll page thumbnails in explorer. See More

Top Con

Awful printing experience

Sumatra sends bitmap files to your printer, I've witnessed an increase in literally (not figuratively) 100x the original file size! If printing multiple PDF files at once is part of your routine, SumatraPDF is not for you, since can easily fill up your RAM. Even if it doesn't, it still is much slower than any other PDF viewer when it comes to printing. See More

ProductiveNezha's Experience

Very fast See More

Top Pro

Does not have heavy editor features

Annotations and other heavy features are just not needed in standard version. If you really must have mark-ups the pre-release version (experimental) allows for PDF simple highlights and comments etc. See More

Top Con

Bad/slow rendering in some versions

That can happen with pdfs made up with very high resolution images or poorly built up pdf. Better in version 3.2.1 See More

EmpatheticAsaruludu's Experience

It's so fast and easy to use! I love that it keeps my place when I'm done reading. See More

Top Pro

Handles many file types

Including - AI, EPS, PDF, CHM, DjVu, EPUB, PJL, PS, FictionBook2, Mobi, PRC, OpenXML Paper Spec, XPS, XOD and Comic Book Archive Files such as CBR, CBZ, CBT, CB7 and can convert those and other images to PDF. Image files such as TGA TIFF PNG JPG GIF WEBP BMP (and save them as PDF) Plain Text files can contain hyperlinks or mailto:addresses See More

Top Con

Can't show double pages as single ones

There's no "split pages" option. See More

GutsyOtso's Experience

tiny and fast viewer See More

Top Pro

Elegant interfaces

Main interface can be tabbed, without tabs and even without bars. Has added choice of two interfaces for epub, mobi, fiction book etc. See More

rosalindmorris23's Experience

It's a bit old for our time, but still pretty legit. The primary minus for me it's only for Windows... you need to use wine or similar emu to run it. See More

Top Pro

Will save specific pages in documents as favorites

Also, remember last reading page. See More

ClameriC's Experience

搜索功能很差 See More

Top Pro

Extensive keyboard shortcuts

Miroslav's Experience

Maybe the only open-source PDF viewer for Windows. But every reader outside is better and faster than Adobe. Especially this one has very light and minimalistic interface. It looks a bit old but there isn't much going on so it's just fine :) See More

Top Pro

Does not run exploit targets such as editable forms

will not run Auto Actions, SWF, Javascript, editable forms (XFA). However will let you EXPORT portfolio objects such as DOCS XLS SWF Javascript files etc. See More

Top Pro

Picks up reading where I left off

When you open a file you have already opened, by default, you are bought back to where you stopped reading, helping you keep your place in large files. See More

Top Pro

In older versions (pre 3.2.1) Viewer button icons can be changed per user via a simple bmp file

This is something that's not obvious from documentation but this is a useful feature. See More

Top Pro

Elegant interface

See All

score 20 · Answer 2

PDF-XChange Viewer

Top Pro

Has a portable version that can be opened from a USB stick

A portable version can be put on a USB stick or installed on Windows without registry bloat or special user rights See More

Top Con

Only available for Windows

oli g.'s Experience

Free version has a plethora of functions, is extremely configurable and it has a portable version. It's search and annotating functions are indispensible tools in any lecture setting. See More

Top Pro

Can add comments and markup

Comment, Text and drawings can be added to any PDF. Very useful for annotating scripts or slides. See More

Top Con

More advanced features only in Pro mode

Joy Ge's Experience

I love it. Allows for a lot of flexibility. The advanced functions require the pro version. So eventually I forked over 30 bucks. See More

Top Pro

Can detect text in built-in images

For example, it can OCR the text in a scanned document and make it searchable. See More

Top Con

Limited support for "typwriting" at any position

E.g. to fill out a simple form (i.e. non XFA form) within a pdf page See More

Top Pro

JavaScript can be disabled for security

Top Pro

Very configurable

Almost any aspect of the tool can be configured: all toolbars and panels can be dragged and dropped to any location any action from the menus can be put as button on toolbars with a simple drag-and-drop interface there are configurations how the PDF page should be displayed or rendered color and fonts of the GUI are modifyable and many more See More

Top Pro

No bloatware

It just displays PDF files. See More

Top Pro

Advanced search features

A search panel allows to search all open PDS, only the active PDF or all PDFs in a folder with our without sub-folders. You can all or any of the words, an exact phrase or exclude words - whole words only, case sensitive - include. The results are also nicely grouped by document. See More

Top Pro

Freeware

Freemium See More

See All

score 33 · Answer 3

Foxit Reader

Top Pro

Easily customized

Top Con

Confusing ribbon bar

An easier to navigate menu bar does not exist. See More

carlosnewmusic's Experience

Menos gasto de ram y mas funcionalidades See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Top Pro

Multi-tab browsing

Top Con

Very inconvenient for reading and annotating books

Annotating is a pain in the a**, the popup bar is useless, it has a couple of buttons 1 of which is useful (highlight) and they are unreasonably tiny, and it's not customizable. The ribbon is unreasonably large and eats screen space. The buttons in the "Quick Access Toolbar" are too small. You have to do a lot of mouse traveling to reach the buttons up in the top left. See More

Feng FSG's Experience

Free, Fast See More

Top Pro

Able to edit PDF

Top Con

No OCR capabilities

So you can't search scanned documents received as PDF files. See More

ClameriC's Experience

搜索功能很差 See More

Top Pro

Portableapps support

Top Con

Printing problems

Sometimes printing process freeze or printed documents come out with alterations which lead to believe there's a problem with the printer driver. See More

See All

score 43 · Answer 4

Xodo PDF Reader & Editor

Top Pro

Efficient user interface

You get what you want by few interactions. See More

Top Con

UWP only

Can only be installed from Microsoft Store. See More

FriendlySors's Experience

Was clean and efficient. See More

Top Pro

No ads

The reader offers a lot of features for free with no ads. See More

Top Con

Not available for Mac and Linux users

PC version is available for only Microsoft users. See More

CompetentUsinsh's Experience

This is a must-have app if you own a touchscreen laptop, especially if it supports a windows ink (or such) stylus. See More

Top Pro

Multi-tabs

Can open more than one PDF at a time in tabs. See More

Top Con

Lag when reading

When switching pages, there can be some lag and a re-zoom of the page. See More

AwesomestLulal's Experience

Excellent App, free as well as a great alternative to Adobe Acrobat reader. A must have app for all users See More

Top Pro

Great handling for S-Pen/Digitizer

Top Con

Not many updates

Top Pro

Color modes for document viewing

Supports advanced color mode, like Night mode or Sepia for viewing PDFs. See More

Top Pro

Dark theme

Supports dark theme for user interface (included window title bar). See More

Top Pro

Works great with diverse cloud services (e.g. Seafile)

And saves changed documents on the fly to the cloud. See More

See All

score 8 · Answer 5

KDE Okular

Top Pro

Free and open source

Top Con

Can be harder to install if you don't like the Windows store

HumbleLakapati's Experience

I think Okular for Windows 10 strikes the best balance. It is highly featured, has good clean UI, uses low RAM (configurable), supports smooth scrolling, supports HiDPI, supports touch screens, allows multiple tabs, etc. See More

Specs

License:GPL-2.0-or-later

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux (KDE), BSD

Top Pro

Supports smooth scrolling

Top Con

No XFA Adobe Forms support

Cannot fill PDF Forms created with Adobe. See More

PopularMacaria's Experience

I Installed Okular from the Windows Store. It is really good at being a PDF reader and just a PDF reader. It can manage most PDF files, but you might need Acrobat for more complicated documents like extensive forms. Unlike Acrobat, however, it is much lighter. See More

Top Pro

Low RAM use

Amount of RAM use can be configured to trade off with performance. See More

Top Con

Not as lightweight as Sumatra PDF

Top Pro

Featureful

Top Con

No search results overview

You have to navigate to next/previous hit one by one. See More

Top Pro

Trim margins

Easily trim margins either automatically or manually for easier reading. See More

Top Pro

Supports touch interaction

Top Pro

HiPDI support

See All

score 1 · Answer 6

PDF24 Creator

Top Pro

Lightweight

LS's Experience

Amazing toolbox. Does everything what you need offline without internet connection. Simply the best free and ad-free PDF-Toolbox and PDF-Reader! See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows

Top Pro

Made by a german company

Top Pro

Free for commercial use

One of the rare pieces of software which has no "Premium" version. All features included in the FREE version. And even free for commercial use. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 7

PDFsam Basic

Top Pro

Multi-platform

Specs

License:AGPL-3

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux

Top Pro

Open source

See All

score 8 · Answer 8

Mozilla Firefox

Top Pro

Integration with Pocket

Firefox comes with built-in Pocket integration that can allow users to quickly save the article for a read it later function to easily find any articles saved in Pocket from various sources and devices. See More

rosalindmorris23's Experience

Reccomend as a PDF reader ? Rly ? It's almoust funny. Anyway it's a good browser but not a tool to work with PDF. See More

Specs

License:MPL-2.0

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android,iPadOS

Based On:Netscape>Mozilla Suite

Browser Engine:Gecko, Webkit on iOS(since Apple does not allow third party web engines)

See All Specs

Top Pro

Strong HTML5 feature support

Firefox scores strongly on HTML5 feature support. See More

Top Pro

Free, open source and community driven

Firefox is available as a free download. All Mozilla software is licensed under the Mozilla Public License. Instructions on how to obtain the source code can be found here. See More

Top Pro

Syncs between devices

Firefox Sync is an optional feature in Firefox that allows syncing bookmarks, passwords, and add-ons between devices. See More

Top Pro

Awesome customizability

Great library of add-ons See More

Top Pro

Reader View

Reader View in Firefox allows users to read an article without any distractions by removing ads, unrelated elements and other distractive objects (similar to Microsoft Edge's Reading Mode and Safari's reader mode). See More

Top Pro

Automatically updated

Firefox is automatically updated on the platforms where it makes sense. See More

Top Pro

Tagging bookmarks

Firefox is one of the few browsers that you can tag your bookmarks. You can view a list of tags and can search your bookmarks in the address bar with tags. See More

Top Pro

Ethical and pragmatic company mission

The Mozilla Manifesto outlines the company's mission and principles. Paraphrasing, they want the Internet to be a free and open resource, and to enable individuals to get the best use of that resource. They do this by creating open source software to which anyone may contribute, so long as such contributions fit with their principles (both ethical and technical). See More

Top Pro

Fast bookmark management

In order to add an open page to the bookmark bar, the tab can be dragged down and is added immediately. See More

Top Pro

Android version allows installation of addons

Unlike other browsers, Mozilla uses almost the same codebase as with the desktop version so extensions work as-is without code modifications - something other browsers cannot do due to their breaking and sometimes unrelated code branches to the mainline desktop branch. See More

Top Pro

Screenshots tool

Powerful screenshots tool built right into the browser. See More

Top Pro

Dark theme

Top Pro

Respects your privacy

Mozilla is one of the first browsers that advocates privacy. They believe that internet should be in the user's control and not those who run the websites, and so they give tools inside the browser to make the user be more in control. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Open source means that you can see the source code. So everybody, even if they don't work for Mozilla, is able to look at what the browser does in the background. So you can be 100% sure that Firefox doesn't have hidden "spy features" unlike Google Chrome. See More

Top Pro

Fast

With new integrations focused on security and performance, Firefox is faster and less likely to have problems during use than ever before. See More

Top Pro

Easy screenshots without extensions

Within the browser itself, you can easily take screenshots and save them to your computer. See More

Top Pro

Lower memory fingerprint than competitors

Firefox used to be a trailer in memory usage, but as of 2017 it's less hungry for memory than competitors like Edge, Chrome, Safari and Opera. See More

Top Pro

Text-to-speech (with adjustable speed) without add-ons

Firefox Reader Mode includes Narrate, a feature that adds text-to-speech functionality to the browser. See More

Top Pro

Good font rasterizing

Font rasterizing on Windows is much better than in competitors. Even smaller text is clear and contrast. See More

Top Pro

High performance

The Firefox Quantum update (FF57) greatly increases the render speed and general performance of the browser, by taking better advantage of the user's hardware. See More

Top Pro

Uses less resources

Firefox 57 (Quantum) and newer uses less resources than ever. It is proven with benchmark done by AppleInsider. See More

Top Pro

Strong developer tool

The built-in developer tools have been merged with the popular FireBug extension since FF57 See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 9

PDF-XChange Editor

Top Pro

The only PDF viewer which allows to extract pages for free.

Specs

License:Proprietary

score 5 · Answer 10

Nitro Reader Free

Top Con

Rouge file naming of your files

It seems to hide edited saved versions of your PDF s in a secret location. Later when its all locked down you wont be able to access them with another program! See More

Top Pro

Can convert files to PDF

NeighborlyMalingee's Experience

I am on version 5. Been using Nitro Reader for years. Never had a problem with it. See More

DebonairQuetzalcoatl's Experience

was good - now its all locked down after the trial period. PS you cant save as PDF after the trial ends See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 11

Tracker PDF XChange Pro

Exports:.pdf; .bmp; .jpeg; .tiff

Real-time collaboration:No

Imports:.pdf; .doc; .docx; .xls; .xlsx; .rtf

See All Specs

score 7 · Answer 12

Microsoft Edge

Top Con

Closed source

Top Pro

Fast

Quick and responsive; even on high files over 100MB, or over 500 pages. A choke point for many other applications. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

I don't need a separate PDF viewer anymore, also Edge can be used to read EPUB format Ebooks. See More

Specs

Default Search Engine:Bing

Available on:Windows 10, iOS, Android, Mac

Browser engine:EdgeHTML

Top Con

Delayed/lazy page loading

Edge does not load all PDF pages by default and therefore one cannot navigate through the document by scrolling fast as some pages appear blank for a short time. This however results in less RAM and CPU usage. See More

Top Pro

Can read epub format

ResponsiveTriptolemus's Experience

no one wants edge on their machine, Microsoft steals enough of your data with windows See More

Top Con

Changing

As Microsoft has pulled the plug on development of the in-house engine, switching to google, the current pros may or may not survive the engine change. See More

Top Pro

Battery saving

Edge is a very efficient browser and pdf viewer. See More

lostinlodos's Experience

Ultra fast See More

Top Con

IE's brother

It shares the same bloodline as Internet Explorer. See More

See All

score 4 · Answer 13

Adobe Reader

Top Pro

Best in class compatibility with the PDF standard

Since Adobe is the creator of the PDF standard, it stands to reason that Adobe's Acrobat Reader has the best support for it. See More

Top Con

Software feels slow and bloated

Raghu Ranganathan's Experience

Simple, easy to use, also the most well known reader on this list, made my Adobe. Stable and works very well for what it does. See More

Top Pro

Easy interface for annotations

A lot of variety on annotations, and the ability to change the layout of the default annotation for, let say, always highlight your PDFs in a different color. See More

Top Con

Proprietary / Monopoly

Top Pro

Allows directing editing for PDF's

You can type in words, signatures, etc in adobe reader. See More

Top Con

Very slow

Every PDF out there is faster than Adobe. See More

Top Pro

Integrated cloud service

Gives access to a cloud service that allows storage and sharing of PDF files. See More

Top Con

Background running

It installs an Adobe update service that is always running in the background. It can be disabled, but it will pop up again when updating. See More

Top Pro

Allows comparing two separate PDF files for differences

Reader can compare two versions of a PDF file and highlight differences. See More

Top Con

Bloatware

Top Con

No way to auto-update for standard users - needs admin credentials to update

See All

score 2 · Answer 14

Chromium

Top Pro

No need to install extra software

Don't need to install extra software since you probably have Chrome (or some other browser running). PDFs are generally opened from the web, too. See More

Top Con

High RAM usage

Just like Chrome, Chromium also eats a lot of RAM, which can be a problem for machines with smaller RAM. See More

Specs

License:Opensource (BSD)

Based On:N/A

Browser Engine:Blink

Top Pro

Good enough

Good enough to view most PDFs without hiccups. See More

Top Con

Lacks privacy options

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Chrome and Chromium are available on almost every device nowadays. See More

Top Con

Simple, dull, bare-boned

Top Pro

Completely open source

Unlike Google Chrome, Chromium is completely open source. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 15

Sejda PDF Desktop

Top Con

Only subscription model, freemium limited by 3 actions a day

score 2 · Answer 16

Google Chrome

Top Con

Not as customizable as Firefox or Vivaldi

Top Pro

Smooth

Scroll is really smooth. See More

Specs

License:EULA

Platforms:Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android, iOS

Based On:Chromium with proprietary Media codecs and Addons

Browser Engine:Blink, Webkit on iOS (since Apple does not allow third-party web engines)

See All Specs

Top Con

Online tracking by default

Chrome allows opting out of tracking by going to Settings > Advanced > Privacy and un-checking any unwanted services. Alternatively Chromium can be used to get a similar browser experience without Google's services on top of it. See More

Top Pro

Sandboxed tabs

Every tab runs as their own process, so if one crashes or becomes unresponsive, the whole browser isn't affected. See More

See All

score 10 · Answer 17

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

Top Con

Ugly interface

Looks like it is made for kids. See More

Top Pro

Bookmarks

carlosnewmusic's Experience

Con muchos servicios inecesarios abiertos siempre, mucho gasto de memoria ram See More

Top Con

Bloated

Takes a long time to start. Has many features that few people use. Often phones home to Adobe. See More

Top Pro

Ease of Use

It is fully recognized software. See More

Somitsvk's Experience

In my knowledge...... it's perfect for PDF See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Top Pro

Multiple tabs

Top Con

Cannot change the order of buttons on toolbar

Top Pro

View page thumbnails

Top Pro

Slides mode/book mode

Recognizes slides/book format and automatically switches into respective mode. (Slides mode = view one PDF page at a time) (Book mode = scroll through pages vertically) See More

Top Pro

Clean design with dark/light mode

Top Pro

Cloud compatible

Can connect to Dropbox and Google Drive. See More

Top Pro

Multiple view modes

Page, scrolling, two-page (in landscape) and a reflow mode. See More

Top Pro

Just works

The app reads all PDF files. See More

Top Pro

SD location recognition

Locate SD location and scan it quickly. See More

See All

Answer 18

Kindle for PC

Top Con

Copies all opened files in a separate folder

The folder is called My Kindle Content, located in My Documents on Windows. See More

Top Pro

Slider/progress bar

At the bottom, there is a scroller similar to the timeline in a video player, which can be used to quickly navigate through the PDF file. See More

Top Con

Slow startup

Top Pro

Uses page numbers from PDF contents

If applicable, displays the page numbers that are printed in the book/PDF instead of the PDF document page index. However, there is no method to display the latter. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 19

PDF Bob

Languages:English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian

score 1 · Answer 20

21 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Sumatra PDF

My Recommendation for Sumatra PDF

Free and open source

No annotation or editing facilities in the standard version

Starts quickly

Does not handle XFA editable forms

Multilingual

Windows or ReactOS only

Low resource usage

Fonts are not smooth enough

Light weight

Lacking exploitable features

Portable

Awful printing experience

Does not have heavy editor features

Bad/slow rendering in some versions

Handles many file types

Can't show double pages as single ones

Elegant interfaces

Will save specific pages in documents as favorites

Extensive keyboard shortcuts

Does not run exploit targets such as editable forms

Picks up reading where I left off

In older versions (pre 3.2.1) Viewer button icons can be changed per user via a simple bmp file

Elegant interface

My Recommendation for PDF-XChange Viewer

My Recommendation for PDF-XChange Viewer

Has a portable version that can be opened from a USB stick

Only available for Windows

Can add comments and markup

More advanced features only in Pro mode

Can detect text in built-in images

Limited support for "typwriting" at any position

JavaScript can be disabled for security

Very configurable

No bloatware

Advanced search features

Freeware

My Recommendation for Foxit Reader

My Recommendation for Foxit Reader

Easily customized

Confusing ribbon bar

Multi-tab browsing

Very inconvenient for reading and annotating books

Able to edit PDF

No OCR capabilities

Portableapps support

Printing problems

My Recommendation for Xodo PDF Reader & Editor

My Recommendation for Xodo PDF Reader & Editor

Efficient user interface

UWP only

No ads

Not available for Mac and Linux users

Multi-tabs

Lag when reading

Great handling for S-Pen/Digitizer

Not many updates

Color modes for document viewing

Dark theme

Works great with diverse cloud services (e.g. Seafile)

My Recommendation for KDE Okular

My Recommendation for KDE Okular

Free and open source

Can be harder to install if you don't like the Windows store

Supports smooth scrolling

No XFA Adobe Forms support

Low RAM use

Not as lightweight as Sumatra PDF

Featureful

No search results overview

Trim margins

Supports touch interaction

HiPDI support

My Recommendation for PDF24 Creator

My Recommendation for PDF24 Creator

Lightweight

Made by a german company

Free for commercial use