What are the best PDF viewers for Linux?

Question

19

Options
Considered

1K

User
Recs.

Nov 11, 2023

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 17 OptionsWhy?

Best PDF viewers for Linux	Price	Platforms	License
94 Okular	Free	Windows, MacOS, Linux (KDE), BSD	GPL-2.0-or-later
84 Atril	-	-	-
79 Zathura	Free	Linux	Zlib
74 qpdfview	-	-	-
71 Evince	Free	-	-

See Full List

16 Other Options Considered

Atril

Top Pro

No GNOME3

It is a straight port of the GNOME2 Evince to GTK3 without sacrificing its UI like Evince 3 did. It also has all the cool stuff that professional apps need, like: Menubars, editable Toolbars, Menus with Icons, Menus with keyboard shortcuts. See More

Top Con

Disappointing search

In comparison with its origin, Evince, the search results in Atril is disappointing. You can search, but only locates your search term per page, the one you're located on. Want to find it elsewhere? Search all pages one by one, page by page. Hence, I personally, working/ searching in large pdfs, therefore prefer Evince, which does give you the search result for the whole document. Apart from this, Atril seems a great piece of (fork) work. See More

EncouragingKyrbas's Experience

The best pdf viewer for GTK based desktops. See More

Top Pro

Great Evince fork

It has been forked when Evince was still good. See More

Top Con

Some GTK dependecy

It needs GTK+ and its dependencies. See More

See All

Zathura

Top Pro

Lightweight

Zathura is fast and can open a pdf file almost instantly. See More

Top Con

No annotation support

EfficientAlala's Experience

Doesn't even work. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux

License:Zlib

Top Pro

Clean interface

Inferface is clean and shows only a small statusbar. See More

Top Con

No thumbnail view

Unlike qpdfview, okular and evince, which have it. See More

DaringTaygete's Experience

I like zathura's completely vim style keyboard support. See More

Top Pro

Vim bindings

You can browse files via keyboard, using keyboard commands similar to vim (text editor). See More

Top Con

Input forms are not editable

qpdfview, okular and evince do this. See More

Daniel Nicolai's Experience

Really fast. Superb keyboard navigation See More

Top Pro

Automatic document reloading

Zathura will automatically refresh the view when a document has been modified. (By contrast, Chrome requires a manual refresh and brings you back to the top of the document so that you have to scroll back down). See More

's Experience

Lightweight and not bloated. See More

Top Pro

Default page layout always same and predictable

No unpredictable window opening behavior like Atril. Together with it's easy ways to scroll and zoom, zathura is perfect for fast look through lots of PDFs See More

ResoluteChariclo's Experience

LOVE See More

Top Pro

Detailed adjustment of dark mode

recolor-darkcolor recolor-lightcolor recolor-keephue recolor-reverse-video (see manpage zathurarc) Also, proper dark mode: colors are grayscaled not inverted. See More

ResponsibleTaBitjet's Experience

it's very fast at starting and since using vim keybindings it's very fast aned easy to use See More

Top Pro

Deactivation of all GUI elements

DecentGelos's Experience

Both zathura and qpdfview have strengths and weaknesses that complement each other nicely. zathura excels at being extremely fast with big documents (many images). It is the only pdf viewer I know of that is able to execute userscripts on documents. The vim-style adds nicely to this. All weaknesses qpdfview covers nicely. For sophisticated annotation I have to fall back to pdf-xchange, though. See More

Top Pro

Very detailed adjustment of page layout

For example: pages-per-row 3 (3 pages next to each other) first-page-column 3:1 (for 3 page column layout: first page is on the left) page-right-to-left false (2nd and 3rd page are shown right to the 1st) Unfortunately I haven't found a way yet to map these commands to a key. The ability to prefix a shortcut with a number argument would lend itself perfectly to achieve what I had in mind. See More

Top Pro

Call userscripts on document

For example: map <C-l> exec "termite -c ./termite_config --class float -e 'tmux new-session /bin/ranger $(dirname "%")'" <C-l> opens ranger with directory containing the opened document Other ideas: extract pages print pages See More

Top Pro

Good documentation of configuration options

See man page "zathura". See More

Top Pro

Multiple tabs via tabbed

https://tools.suckless.org/tabbed/ But unlike qpdfview search will only operate on one tab instance. See More

See All

qpdfview

Top Pro

Low on resources

Top Con

Deadly slow on complex pdf files

GenerousSulis's Experience

Slow to point of useless. See More

Top Pro

Reloads on changes instantly

Top Con

File information missing page size

JoyfulKumarbi's Experience

a very decent pdf viewer See More

Top Pro

Outline, properties and thumbnail panes

Top Con

No multiple mapping of commands

For example: moveDown=Down moveLeft=Shift+Left moveRight=Shift+Right moveUp=Up Having two key mappings to execute the moveUp command doesn't seem to be possible. See More

DecentGelos's Experience

Both qpdfview and zathura have strengths and weaknesses that complement each other nicely. qpdfview excels at tabbed browsing of multiple documents and doing searches over all opened documents. See More

Top Pro

Open multiple pdfs in tabs

qpdfview is a tabbed document viewer. See More

Top Con

Configuration intended via GUI

There is no explicit documentation of configuration parameters used in qpdfview.conf and shortcuts.conf (those are the most important ones). However the files are editable conveniently, which is of value. See More

Top Pro

Allows for some scripting

Opens files in named instances, open files on designated page. Calling of userscripts on a document is thus far not possible. See More

Top Pro

Fast search in all opened files

Top Pro

Dark mode

However only inverted colors. See More

Top Pro

Scale, rotate and fit

Top Pro

Supports TOC-sidebar

Top Pro

Switch tabs with keyboard shortcuts

Top Pro

Continuous and multiple-page layouts

Top Pro

Add highlights and text annotations

Top Pro

DjVu support

Top Pro

Fullscreen and presentation views

Top Pro

PostScript support

Top Pro

Custom background colors

Top Pro

Multiplatform

It is available on any major computer OS. See More

Top Pro

Deactivation of GUI elements

e.g.: toggleMenuBar toggleToolBars See More

Top Pro

Supports thumbnail preview

Top Pro

Input forms are editable

See All

Evince

Top Pro

Can annotate a pdf

It isn't immediately obvious how to do this, but the instructions are here. As of 13 June 2018, the icons/screenshots on that page look different than what can be seen under Evince v3.18.2, but the devs have been alerted to this discrepancy, and there are requests they make the finding/using of annotations more intuitive than they are now. See More

Top Con

Keyboard shortcuts cannot be rebound

EfficientAlala's Experience

Frustrating since day one. Poor or non-existent configuration. Irritating bugs that never get fixed (such as starting scrolling randomly when move mouse around). Devs that don't care. See More

Top Pro

Search results list

Click/tap the magnifying class in the top bar. See More

Top Con

Scrolling is not smooth

GenerousSulis's Experience

Slow to glacial. See More

Top Pro

Good SEARCH

Evince remained my preferred viewer due to the excellent presentation of results in the whole document when performing a search. It is so good, that it makes me tolerate the silly "hamburger" (CSD) foolishness. See More

Top Con

Adding annotations isn't as intuitive as it should be

Instructions can be found here. Specifically, a user should be able to select a word or block of text, then right-click and see highlight/add note options in the drop-down menu. Currently, this option isn't available (as of Evince v3.18.2 / 13th June 2018). See More

OrganizedUllr's Experience

slow like molasses , takes time to open a single pdf See More

Top Pro

Link preview on hover

Evince shows a popup with the preview of the target of links in the same document. This is extremely useful e.g. for links to the bibliography or for references to definitions/propositions/equations in math texts. See More

Top Con

Poor UI

Since version 3 it is almost unusable. See More

ReasonableKaskuh's Experience

The only viewer I have found with a search function where all results appear in a list on the left (like Apple Preview). UI is elegant and simple but with all functionality you would expect. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source software

Top Con

Can't delete pages

No Hand Tool. Automatic Zoom broken. You have to boot in to windows to have a decent PDF reader. See More

IntellectualPercunatele's Experience

fast and easy to use, all the necessary options are in the menue See More

Top Pro

Can find a word in a pdf

Top Con

Bugs that never get fixed

Irritating bugs that never get fixed (such as starting scrolling randomly when moving mouse around) and devs that don't care. See More

DreamerCopacati's Experience

easy to use, simple, fast, text selection, text finding and intuitive navigation See More

Top Pro

Supports touchpad gestures

Top Con

Tied to GNOME

Comes with all those weird things like popovers and clientside windows. See More

Top Pro

Good integration with Gnome desktop

Top Con

Slow to open PDFs

Top Pro

Supports touch interaction

Supports touch, including drag and pinch to zoom. See More

Top Con

CSD - Why do you need to search for stuff you know is there... somewhere.

MS thought it was smart to remove "Start" buttons. With CSD, devs thought it would be good for productivity to play hide and seek with standard functions. And Evince regrettably is also riding that wave. It is that Evince has a superior (whole document) search result presentation and that its function is pretty simple and straight forward (read, search), that it makes me tolerate the silly "hamburger" (CSD) foolishness. If Atril (no CSD) would have similar search result output, a switch over would be just one heartbeat away... See More

Top Pro

Can play embedded video

To my knowlegde, the only PDF reader on Linux that can play embeded video (unfortunately not in presentation mode, which is a major drawdack). See More

Top Con

Window can't be resized

You can only read in a small box or fullscreen, no way to manually size window. See More

Top Con

Thumbs not working

Scroll once, and all thumbs in the side panel are gone. See More

Top Con

Unicode problems

Some languages other than English do not render correctly. See More

See All

PDF Studio Viewer

Top Con

Proprietary software

This is proprietary software using a freeware model. It is not open-source. See More

Top Pro

The Only Complete PDF editing/viewer tool available for all platforms (Windows, MacOS, Linux, Unix)

It GUI is user friendly and well designed with its ribbon menu. It's actually very similar to what you can find in a MS Word or Adobe Pro environment. It has all the features you can imagine for commenting/marking the PDF, creating forms, and editing PDF files. It is available on all platforms: Windows, MacOS, AND LINUX. See More

DecentSwayxtix's Experience

Great Pdf Editor See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Unix, Windows, macOS

License:FREE

Based On:Qoppa's Own PDF Technology

Languages:English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Portuguese

See All Specs

Top Con

Requires Java!

What's the most bloated runtime platform in the history of computing? Java! This app actually tried to install a JVM on my machine without asking... not having it. See More

Top Pro

Responsive to critiques

They are actively looking for ways to improving their products. For example, they made some improvements in PDF Studio 2018 after a PCWorld review came out in 2017. See More

GenerousSulis's Experience

It's the best of the bunch. See More

Top Con

CON Free version add a watermark

The free version will add a watermark, which is kind of annoying but I guess necessary for them. See More

Top Pro

Digital signatures

PDF Studio Viewer is the only free PDF viewer for Linux that recognized digital signatures from docusign in a way that lets you easily verify the signatures. See More

Raul Castillo's Experience

This is the best software to use for estimating construction jobs on Linux. It's easier to use than Adobe Acrobat and has lots of useful features for measurements, highlighting and keeping count of networking drops. I can edit anything on the pages as well. See More

Top Con

Extra features require payment

Any feature not included in the freeware version requires purchasing a license to upgrade. See More

Top Pro

Advanced print & search options

PDF Studio Pro is a really useful PDF editor. This is more like Adobe Acrobat earlier versions, in terms of look and feel. That’s user friendly. Command icons are clear with tooltip already written. Menu is elaborated well break-up. Also, all the functions seems to be available. See More

JollyRongo's Experience

The easiest software I found for printing multiple pages on Linux Mint. All other software require inputting pages by numbers, here, you can just select the ones you want to print, choose the format of multiple pages (horizontal/vertical) and it all comes with a beautiful gui. I used to love adobe and foxit on windows, but those programs suck on linux. See More

Top Pro

Measurement tools

UpbeatAgdistis's Experience

This is a great Linux PDF program. If you don't want to / can't afford Adobe's this is an A+ alternative. See More

Top Pro

PRO Suitable for both basic users and more advanced Acrobat veterans

I was looking for a decent alternative to Acrobat, as it was the last thing my dad needed to make the switch to Linux. Tired of paying per month for proprietary software I wouldn't actually own, I went on a quest to find multi-platform PDF editing software. Unfortunately, it isn't FOSS, however, the license is owned in perpetuity and you are helping out lesser known devs who've made a great product. Pros * All of the features needed for the average acrobat user. * Edit, merge comment, measure, tools suitable for both basic users and more advanced Acrobat veterans. * Speed. Even in a VM using a paltry 1 GB of ram, I was able to merge multiple documents and watermark effortlessly. I generated a study guide from handwritten notes in seconds. * Create from the scanner is incredibly useful. * Multiplatform compatibility See More

IngeniousNehebkau's Experience

Excellent software, developed exceptionally well See More

Top Pro

PDF Studio Viewer is the fastest PDF viewer on Linux

It'd be nice if a FOSS source viewer were out in front here, but sadly not. It would be even nicer if PDF and Adobe's dead hand hadn't become the standard doc format. but sadly we have to live with this. See More

FantasticPandia's Experience

Extremely helpful for teachers who constantly receive tons of PDF homeworks from students. Tried many PDF viewers and this is by far the most convenient for homework grading, as it includes all the features I possibly need. See More

Top Pro

User-friendly advanced printing

The easiest software I found for printing multiple pages on Linux Mint. All other software require inputting pages by numbers, here, you can just select the ones you want to print, choose the format of multiple pages (horizontal/vertical) and it all comes with a beautiful gui. I used to love adobe and foxit on windows, but those programs suck on linux. See More

EnchantingArash's Experience

rich functionality See More

Top Pro

Loupe tool

AffableVanapagan's Experience

This is the PDF Studio Viewer, their offering that compares to Acrobat Reader. It is from the same company that created PDF Studo Pro, an amazing, full-featured, professional PDF studio application that you can pay for one time and keep using for as long as it will run on your computer. It compares to Acrobat Pro, but I honestly feel that it is better than Acrobat in many ways. I recommend both applications without hesitation! See More

Top Pro

As of 2018 supports text, markup & graphical annotations, as well as form filling

LoyalMetis's Experience

The OCR works well See More

VersatileBochica's Experience

Best Alternative to PdfXchange See More

ExceptionalLeto's Experience

It is truly cross-platform- I used it on my Linux, Windows, and Apple systems without any problem. Its one of the few PDF editors for Linux. It's easy to use- the menu is well designed and its much easier to find the tools I need than Adobe Acrobat with its convoluted odd menu system. It has reliable OCR built into the software and good tools for optimizing PDFs (reducing size) and for saving as image files (jpeg, png, tiff, etc). See More

CredibleAjtzak's Experience

I'm been searching for an alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader for my Linux Laptop for a long time (Adobe not being supported anymore on Linux). I've explored Foxit Reader, Okular, QPdfViewer and none of them provided the optimal experience I was looking for until I've found Quoppa PDF Studio. It GUI is user friendly and well designed with its ribbon menu. It's actually very similar to what you can find in a MS Word or Adobe Pro environment. It has all the features you can imagine for commenting/marking the PDF, creating forms, and editing PDF files. The strongest point to me is that it's available on ALL the platforms: Windows, MacOS, AND LINUX. I only tried the Linux version but I bet the other versions are just as nice and optimal as the Linux one. I'm really happy to have found it. I'm just a little bit puzzled about why I haven't found this software up to know. That's a real pity. I strongly Recommend this software. You won't be disappointed. See More

CromulentMaderakka's Experience

The best I know for Linux user See More

CaringQucumatz's Experience

I highly recommend this software to any and all #Linux or #Ubuntu users. I'm currently using it on my Zorin OS laptop and it's the only software I've found that can match Adobe Acrobat without the adobe headaches. What are you waiting for? Just do it! See More

KindBaalat's Experience

PDF Studio Pro is really an useful PDF editor. Earlier I was in MS Windows and was using Adobe Acrobat. But after switching to Linux, I was having problems with PDF editing. PDF Studio Pro has compensated the crisis. This is more like Adobe Acrobat earlier versions, in terms of look and feel. That’s user friendly. As I’m neither an expert nor a commercial/professional person, I always prefer user friendlyness. Command icons are clear with tooltip already written. Menu is elaborated well break-up. Very less searching for what I’m looking at. Also, all the functions seems to be available, so far I have tried. See More

Luca Bergamaschi's Experience

Fantastic application. pdf additional use to modify pdf adding writings and underlining. You can find the software at this link: https://www.qoppa.com/pdfstudio/ See More

CapableUkeMochi's Experience

I considered ease of use and ability to edit PDFs efficiently. See More

Melusi Khumalo's Experience

Ease of use. See More

Marco's Experience

Really dynamic and easy to understand software. Documents can be created quickly and accurately. You can find the software at this link: https://www.qoppa.com/pdfstudio/ See More

M.lucke's Experience

Fantastic application, it has many features including the ability to modify the text and functionality of the OCR. Much better than Adobe. See More

Geoff Soe-Paing's Experience

Came across this when looking for a .pdf reader for mac where I can mark up and do simple take-offs from construction drawings...love the clean interface and the ability to calibrate measurements; in fact I might well ditch my current PC software and use this as well! See More

laragoza31's Experience

An avid user of adobe at work, PDF Studio Viewer is on the same level. It's clear professional layout is welcomed compared to any of the other Linux software available. https://www.qoppa.com/pdfstudio/ See More

don's Experience

The best pdf editor I have ever used. Lots of features See More

MagicalRaijin's Experience

very good program See More

See All

Mozilla Firefox

Top Pro

Built-in PDF.js supports viewing and editing xfa forms

Top Con

Crappy license

Cannot redistribute binary after source code modification. See More

Specs

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

License:OpenSource (MPL-2.0)

Based On:Netscape>Mozilla Suite

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

See All Specs

Top Con

Sometimes very buggy and slow

On sites like twitch.tv chat scrolling is still not fixed. Compared to other browsers Firefox is still very slow and feels sluggish. See More

Top Con

Uses GTK on Linux/BSD

This makes the integration on non-GTK Desktop Environments very hard. See More

Top Con

Some built-in advertising

with their new "pocket" feature, they offer advertisements built-in. See More

See All

mupdf

Top Pro

Super fast

It was written in C and opengl, so your hardware was used fully. See More

Top Con

No print option

GenerousSulis's Experience

Fast but featureless, even printing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Android, iOS

Top Pro

Vim-mode shortcut keys

Super easy to use with rapid response. See More

Top Con

No two page mode

OptimisticKagutsuchi's Experience

the stupidest pdf reader i've encountered. See More

Top Pro

Excellent for presentations

Top Con

Not enough functionality

If you want "minimal," you got it. See More

OrganizedUllr's Experience

One of the best! See More

Top Pro

Annotation capability

With mupdf-gl, you can do most of the annotations and comments. See More

Top Con

The annotation does not have good shortcut key support

Jingpeng Wu's Experience

super fast See More

Top Con

Cannot customize shortcut keys

See All

Foxit Reader

Top Con

Proprietary software

Top Pro

Good for creating annotations

LearnedIshtar's Experience

It's not free only 14 day trial See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Top Con

Unstable

Crashes in preferences consistently, is unstable in the latest (5.16) Linux kernel, Gnome 40.x. See More

Top Pro

Can install a PDF printer

HealthyManannanMacLir's Experience

Good for proof reading and annotationing See More

Top Con

Ugly interface

Uses a monospace font, which can't be changed anywhere in Preferences. See More

Top Pro

good compliance with adobe reader

CompassionateCinteotl's Experience

freezes/crashes too often on fedora (currently fc30) See More

Top Con

Has less features

It's windows version has many more features that its linux version See More

Top Pro

Plugin architecture

Some plugins available, and I assume it would be possible to write my own. See More

Jingpeng Wu's Experience

have the best compliance with adobe reader. See More

Top Con

No way to change keyboard shortcuts

Top Con

Bundles toolbar software in the installer

Top Con

Feature list is very basic under Mac & Linux version, as compared to Windows client

See here. See More

Top Con

Installs but does not run on 32bit Xubuntu Linux (16.04.5)

Downloaded Foxit Reader file from the official website installs to the default location ( /home/me/opt), and Foxit icon even appears on the taskbar, but either clicking on it or selecting it from the main menu fails silently. See More

Top Con

ADs

it shows ADs in the free version. See More

See All

Chromium

Top Pro

Bare

It does not have any extensions preinstalled and focuses to be a web browser. See More

Top Con

Lacks privacy options

PhilosophicalLluddLlawEraint's Experience

just like to use simple clean already available lightweight browser, easy and clean, u do u See More

Specs

License:Opensource (BSD)

Based On:N/A

Browser Engine:Blink

Top Pro

Sandboxing

Every tab and plugin runs in its own subprocess so they will never affect the whole browser, however, that consumes more memory than other browsers. See More

Top Pro

Completely Open Source

Both Chromium and its rendering engine Blink are licensed under the BSD-license which includes no copyleft unlike the GNU or Mozilla Licenses. See More

Top Pro

Latest Blink

This is the browser Blink is made for and developed alongside. See More

Top Pro

BSD license

You can do almost anything with the code. See More

Top Pro

Internal PDF reader

Can be used as simple PDF reader which makes the install of an external PDF reader obsolete. See More

Top Pro

Does not come with Google

Unlike Chrome it does come wihout any Google account requirement. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

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

See All

Master PDF Editor

Top Pro

Full featured

For those that are looking for "Acrobat" like capabilities, this is a good option. It doesn't only is able to be a reader, but also an editor. Also have experienced cases where my "first-to-go-to" viewer Evince shows a "only viewable with Acrobat Reader 8" text, while MPE opens (the form) without issues. See More

Top Con

Proprietary, "freemium" version serverly hampered

In the "early days" of MPE (think about 8-10 years ago), development was clearly ongoing, and the linux versions of MPE were full featured and without restrictions. However, now that the product has matured (thanks to the testers out there?) the devs have closed many features of the product (e.g. optimise, that can also be done with other, free software like GhostScript). Furthermore, in comparison to those earlier versions, the devs, in search for continuous "new-new-new!" features, have added functionality that some might consider useful, but many probably rank as bloat/ already supplied by other software. Trying to monetise the devs have resorted eventually to large "NOT REGISTERED FREE VERSION" watermarks, where perhaps a base, limited feature set, free (as in beer) version would be more successful commercialisation strategy. Versions higher than 4.3.82 are crippled significantly for effective use. See More

PhilosophicalTlaloc's Experience

obscene price See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Full featured, on par with Acrobat

For those looking for "Acrobat" like capabilities, this is a good option. It isn't only able to be a reader, but also an editor. Also have experienced cases where my "first-to-go-to" viewer Evince shows a "only viewable with Acrobat Reader 8" text, while MPE opens the form without only issues. See More

Top Con

Free only for non-commercial use

IndustriousEosphorus's Experience

It is the best and efficient one I have ever seen in linux and I am using free function with that I can perform almost all functions needed in a pdf editor(crop, split , rotate and many more) See More

Top Pro

Free for non-commercial use

Top Pro

Very good import capabilities

See All

lumina-pdf

Add Video or Image

(Spac)emacs with pdf-tools

Top Pro

Extensible, customizable and scriptable

Being a Emacs plugin you can use elisp to customize, script and extend pdf-tools. See More

Top Con

Only for power users

Handy only for people that want good notes/annotation management. Otherwise using any other pdf-reader is recommended. See More

Daniel Nicolai's Experience

Best power pdf reader and editor (after some minor setup/configuration)! Spacemacs makes configuring Emacs a breeze so that Emacs its almost "magical" powers become accesible to "normal" people. Spac(emacs) with pdf-tools has convenient default keyboard shortcuts (e.g. vim-style with spacemacs) and has potentially the best annotation support, as combined with the org-noter (or interleave) package annotations are automatically exported to a notes file and backlinked. Additionally pdf-tools has wonderful search facilities (through pdf-occur). Combined with Auctex it also forms the best latex editing environment. With spacemacs, pdf-tools is easily installed and configured. As it is emacs, the reader is ultimately configurable and hackable. The minimal initial setup time is worth the effort. (Using the spacemacs develop branch is recommended) See More

Top Pro

Can treat multiple PDF's as one big PDF

Top Con

Too cumbersome for quick reading or annotating

Although setting up pdf-tools is not too much work. For quick reading using some default pdf-viewer like evince/okular/zathura is recommended. Also, except for the auto-export feature (with org-noter/interleave package), other editors like e.g. pdf-XChange Editor (via wine), Okular or mupdf have even more powerful annotation features. See More

Top Pro

Nice search using Occur

Occur creates a list all lines matching a regexp or string in one or more pdfs and allows easy jumping between them. Really helpful when searching long documents like datasheets. See More

Top Con

No continuous scroll

Top Pro

Synctex support

Top Con

Requires emacs

Top Pro

Easy installation

Although installing requires little more work than stand-alone readers, pdf-tools is very easily installed via Emacs 'list-packages' or even easier as a layer in Spacemacs See More

Top Pro

Convenient default keyboard shortcuts

Uses emacs or vim-style navigation (via spacemacs/evil. Shortcut overview via transient state "SPC m .") See More

Top Pro

Automatically exported notes

Notes can be exported automatically to and backlinked from an external org notes file using the org-noter or interleave package. See More

See All

Foxit PDF Reader

Top Con

Bloatware

Contains too many unneeded features. See More

PDF Bob

Top Con

Cloud

Specs

Platforms:Web

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

Google Chrome

Top Con

Not fully open-source

While most of Chrome is open source: Chrome does have some closed-source components to make it possible to play some closed media formats. 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

Specs

Platforms:Linux; macOS; Windows; Android; iOS

License:Proprietary

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

Big target for hackers

Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. That makes it the most targeted browser in the world by hackers. See More

Top Con

Bad for battery life

Drains battery life on both Windows laptops and Macs much quicker than the alternatives. It can shave hours off the battery life of any non Chromebook laptop. See More

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 Con

Huge memory hog

Each tab and extension in the browser uses significant chunks of RAM, giving the browser poor performance on machines without enough RAM to supply. See More

Top Con

Increasingly slow

When Chrome first came out, it was known for being lightweight and very speedy. Over the years, more and more features have been added to Chrome. Because of this, crashes, errors, and general laggy-ness has increased noticeably. See More

Top Con

It's Google

Data collection! See More

See All

PDF Reader Pro

PDF Studio Pro

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score 287 · Accepted Answer

Okular

Top Pro

Trim margins

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

Top Con

Requires many KDE libraries

EnchantingHermodr's Experience

Okular doesn't fit my need. Bloody slow with large files. See More

Specs

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

License:GPL-2.0-or-later

Top Pro

Free and open source

Top Con

No middle-mouse auto-scrolling

Instead of scrolling automatically when holding down the mouse wheel and dragging, it instead zooms in or out, in contrast with many other programs. See More

GenerousEnbilulu's Experience

I does not keep the settings I prefer. Every time I open it, it ignores my previous settings. See More

Top Pro

Featureful

Top Con

Poor HiDPI support

You may have to tinker with QT__SCALE_FACTOR environment variables to get the desired size and not blurry content (this is a bug; see https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=362856 and https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/54688) See More

GenerousSulis's Experience

Huge infrastructure, and slow. See More

Top Pro

Table selection

Top Con

No search results overview

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

PopularHuehuecoyotl's Experience

No touch support See More

Top Pro

Supports touch interaction

Top Con

No XFA Adobe Forms support

Cannot fill PDF Forms created with Adobe. See More

Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience

Awesome ! See More

Top Pro

Tabbed view option

Top Con

No "fit to page" option under printing settings

You can only print the content as given so, when you receive a bigger or smaller image thant the default of the printer, you will have to edit it first on other editor. See More

David Eltz's Experience

Flexible for viewing and light editing, Okular is probably the best PDF tool for Linux-based operating systems. See More

Top Con

Slow scroll

Its new ultra-slow-scroll for PgUp and PgDn makes it unuseable. See More

CharmingRaedieahkka's Experience

The possibility to configure every action to personalized shortcuts. See More

See All

The Best 1 of 17 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Okular

My Recommendation for Okular

Trim margins

Requires many KDE libraries

Free and open source

No middle-mouse auto-scrolling

Featureful

Poor HiDPI support

Table selection

No search results overview

Supports touch interaction

No XFA Adobe Forms support

Tabbed view option

No "fit to page" option under printing settings

Slow scroll

16 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Atril

My Recommendation for Atril

No GNOME3

Disappointing search

Great Evince fork

Some GTK dependecy

My Recommendation for Zathura

My Recommendation for Zathura

Lightweight

No annotation support

Clean interface

No thumbnail view

Vim bindings

Input forms are not editable

Automatic document reloading

Default page layout always same and predictable

Detailed adjustment of dark mode

Deactivation of all GUI elements

Very detailed adjustment of page layout

Call userscripts on document

Good documentation of configuration options

Multiple tabs via tabbed

My Recommendation for qpdfview

My Recommendation for qpdfview

Low on resources

Deadly slow on complex pdf files

Reloads on changes instantly

File information missing page size

Outline, properties and thumbnail panes

No multiple mapping of commands

Open multiple pdfs in tabs

Configuration intended via GUI

Allows for some scripting

Fast search in all opened files

Dark mode

Scale, rotate and fit

Supports TOC-sidebar

Switch tabs with keyboard shortcuts

Continuous and multiple-page layouts

Add highlights and text annotations

DjVu support

Fullscreen and presentation views

PostScript support

Custom background colors

Multiplatform

Deactivation of GUI elements

Supports thumbnail preview

Input forms are editable

My Recommendation for Evince

My Recommendation for Evince

Can annotate a pdf

Keyboard shortcuts cannot be rebound

Search results list

Scrolling is not smooth

Good SEARCH

Adding annotations isn't as intuitive as it should be

Link preview on hover

Poor UI

Free and open source software

Can't delete pages

Can find a word in a pdf

Bugs that never get fixed

Supports touchpad gestures