[ale] PDF reader

JD jdp at algoloma.com
Fri Mar 16 17:08:36 EDT 2012


On 03/16/2012 03:41 PM, mike at trausch.us wrote:
> On 03/13/2012 05:42 PM, James Baker wrote:
>> This works fine for all the .pdfs I've had to deal with.
>>
>> http://www.gnome.org/projects/evince
> 
> A couple of caveats, however.
> 
> Evince does NOT support JavaScript.
> 
> You can _not_ use it with any PDF that the state of Georgia has created
> that requires JavaScript in order to be filled out or properly printed.
>  For those, I use Acrobat on a Windows VM.
> 
> Also, Evince does not behave properly when filling out PDF forms with
> the keyboard.  You have to (annoyingly) click in every field that you
> want to type in.  Using <TAB> does not work.  I don't know if they'll
> ever fix that.  I haven't been annoyed enough by that to do it myself
> yet... but I am probably not far off from that point.


NEVER (ok, not really), but never use Adobe PDF tools unless you must to earn
money and alternatives don't work for you. I've had to use Adobe Acrobat for
many years professionally. I don't need them anymore.  Adobe management has
finally started caring about security, but they still haven't convinced
everyone.  It took them 5 years too long, IMHO.

There are free tools that work under Linux. I've never found a nice authoring
tool to add annotations inside PDF files under Linux, so a WINE installed
PDF-Xchange works. It is marked as Platinum rating at WineHQ:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=11392&iTestingId=22854
, to making it work very well should be possible.  Be certain to disable the
Javascript stuff to decrease attack vectors unless you **know** it must be enabled.

Okular and evince are some of the Linux tools.  Hopefully, someone can provide
other suggestions.


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