When comparing Evince vs PDF Studio Viewer, the Slant community recommends Evince for most people. In the question“What are the best PDF viewers for UNIX-like systems?” Evince is ranked 4th while PDF Studio Viewer is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Evince is:
It isn't immediately obvious how to do this, but the instructions are [here](https://help.gnome.org/users/evince/stable/annotations.html.en). 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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Search results list
Click/tap the magnifying class in the top bar.
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.
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.
Pro Free and open source software
Pro Can find a word in a pdf
Pro Supports touchpad gestures
Pro Good integration with Gnome desktop
Pro Supports touch interaction
Supports touch, including drag and pinch to zoom.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pro Measurement tools
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
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.
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.
Pro Loupe tool
Pro As of 2018 supports text, markup & graphical annotations, as well as form filling
Cons
Con Keyboard shortcuts cannot be rebound
Con Scrolling is not smooth
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).
Con Poor UI
Since version 3 it is almost unusable.
Con Can't delete pages
No Hand Tool. Automatic Zoom broken.
You have to boot in to windows to have a decent PDF reader.
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.
Con Tied to GNOME
Comes with all those weird things like popovers and clientside windows.
Con Slow to open PDFs
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...
Con Window can't be resized
You can only read in a small box or fullscreen, no way to manually size window.
Con Thumbs not working
Scroll once, and all thumbs in the side panel are gone.
Con Unicode problems
Some languages other than English do not render correctly.
Con Proprietary software
This is proprietary software using a freeware model. It is not open-source.
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.
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.
Con Extra features require payment
Any feature not included in the freeware version requires purchasing a license to upgrade.
