[ale] switching to foxit for pdf viewing with or without adobe as backup

Fri Mar 22 14:17:00 EDT 2013

Hi Scott,

I'm adding Okra? to my list of alternatives along with xpdf and okular, which someone mentioned previously.  Is it possible that okular is the one your were thinking of?

Sincerely,

Ron

Scott Castaline <skotchman at gmail.com> wrote:

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>If evince isn't sophisticated enough then there is always Okra(? not
>sure of name just that it starts with O and is a native KDE app). Down
>side is that if you're not using KDE or any KDE apps already it will
>install a boat load of KDE related files. When I was using it along
>with Mafia$haft Font$ (I'm ducking) I felt it blew off the door on
>ADOBE. For now Evince is good enough for me as a standalone and I do
>have FoxIt as I do believe it is already built in to Firefox 19.0.2 as
>I didn't have to install it when I bumped up to Fedora 18.
>
>
>
>On 03/22/2013 11:37 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>> Hi JD,
>> 
>> My experience with evince on Ubuntu, which is what I believe loads
>> when you start document viewer, is that it's abilities for viewing
>> complex pdf's and controlling page layout and zoom and switching
>> are far inferior to Adobe Reader.  At one point, I had Adobe Reader
>> installed in Ubuntu because it just works better.  Although, now, I
>> might reverse that.  The feature set of Foxit seems far more
>> comparable to Adobe, while still being more secure, they say.  I
>> haven't tried to install it on linux yet, so I don't know if there
>> is a ppa.  Regarding flash, I find that indispensable.  There are
>> tons of sites that won't work without it.  However, I only allow it
>> to run on sites I trust using noscript, as you suggested.  My
>> banking sites, as it turns out, are happy enough using javascript.
>> They don't have to have flash.  That ruby on rails video you posted
>> in another thread is Youtube.  Gotta have flash for that.
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> 
>> Ron
>> 
>> 
>> JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Why not use native PDF tools on Linux? * xournal for
>>> editing/markups (to embed the edits, save-as PDF) * evince if
>>> searching (xournal doesn't have search for some reason)
>>> 
>>> Sorry, I'm just confused.  If it doesn't have a PPA or it isn't
>>> in the distro repository, I don't want it on my system.  Getting
>>> programs directly from a ZIP or tgz or even a DEB is soooooo
>>> 1980s.   Package manager have freed us from the droll work of
>>> software updates from 50 different places.
>>> 
>>> Hopefully everyone knows to avoid all programs made by Adobe by
>>> this point too, though I will admit to using Flash in an
>>> extremely selective manner. It is not enabled anywhere by
>>> default.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 03/22/2013 10:01 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> 
>>>> (Ignore the fact that some program names are not capitalized.
>>>> I just
>>> didn't
>>>> want to mess with it.)
>>>> 
>>>> Because of all the security problems with Adobe reader, I
>>>> decided to
>>> switch to
>>>> foxit for pdf viewing rather than adobe, but I wanted to keep
>>>> adobe
>>> as a backup
>>>> for more complex pdf files.  This sounds easy, but it's not as
>>>> easy
>>> as you might
>>>> think to get it working right.  Also, the foxit installer does
>>>> not
>>> set up
>>>> everything correctly and securely in this case.  I thought I'd
>>>> share
>>> my
>>>> experience in case anyone is wanting to do the same thing.  For
>>>> my
>>> purposes, I
>>>> prefer not to view pdf's in the browser, but to have the reader
>>>> pop
>>> up.  I have
>>>> the configuration set for this.
>>>> 
>>>> (Warning, for security reasons, if you do have Adobe Reader on
>>>> your
>>> system, and
>>>> you intend to keep it, go into its preferences and turn off
>>> javascript before
>>>> doing the following procedures, since Adobe reader could start
>>>> up by
>>> mistake.
>>>> This post tells how to configure Foxit, not Adobe.  There are
>>>> a
>>> number of other
>>>> settings to configure Adobe reader for safety which are not
>>> documented here.  I
>>>> can list those if anyone has a need for it.)
>>>> 
>>>> What I did here is on Windows, but almost everything applies to
>>>> Linux
>>> too, but
>>>> some of the procedures would be different.  Some of the Linux
>>>> gurus
>>> can tell how
>>>> to do those things that are different.
>>>> 
>>>> NOTE: YOU MUST DO ALL THESE PROCEDURES, OTHER THAN FOXIT
>>> INSTALLATION, ON EACH
>>>> USER LOGIN.
>>>> 
>>>> You can get the foxit reader here:
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.foxitsoftware.com/
>>>> 
>>>> Install it according to the normal procedures for your system.
>>>> 
>>>> You are NOT done, at this point.  You just think you are.
>>>> 
>>>> Start the foxit reader.
>>>> 
>>>> Go into the preferences screen and check / set the following
>>>> tabs /
>>> settings:
>>>> 
>>>> File Associations page: Click the make default PDF viewer
>>>> button (just to double
>>> check), click OK
>>>> CHECK always perform check when starting foxit reader UNCHECK
>>>> (per your preference) display pdf in browser
>>>> 
>>>> General page: (not security related, but are my preferences) 
>>>> UNCHECK make hand tool select text UNCHECK auto hide status
>>>> bar UNCHECK show start page
>>>> 
>>>> JavaScript page: (note this defaults to a LESS secure setting) 
>>>> UNCHECK enable javascript actions
>>>> 
>>>> Trust Manager page: (this will default to what you set during
>>> install)
>>>> CHECK enable safe reading mode
>>>> 
>>>> Updater page: (these are my preferences) SELECT automatically
>>>> install updates
>>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________ Ale mailing list 
>>> Ale at ale.org http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS,
>>> ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at 
>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and
>> K-9 Mail. Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the
>> touch screen.
>> 
>> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might
>> want to call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from
>> alternate energy mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new
>> email messages very quickly.)
>> 
>> Ron Frazier 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message. linuxdude AT
>> techstarship.com
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________ Ale mailing list 
>> Ale at ale.org http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS,
>> ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>> 
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--

Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch screen.

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier
770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT techstarship.com