Alternative Free PDF Readers

[Xhris]

So recently, I actually wondered for just a moment why on earth I was still using Adobe Reader (AR) to view PDFs. Given Adobe’s record in the software they make, and how much of a tedious, clunky, slow hassle it is to open and view PDFs (which are a particularly crappy format technically speaking anyway, despite their universality), I started to ask around for alternative readers (that were FREE). Friends and a Google search revealed two other products: Foxit, and PDF XChange.

I downloaded these and gave them both a whirl. As usual, trying to find even the simplest objective test of software by relying on either the rest of humanity on the internet or the marketing spielers, resulted in nothing of immediate value. So here’s a quick summary of my thoughts of the two PDF reader alternatives to Adobe Reader after a simple 10 minute play around. I was only interested in opening and reading PDFs—none of the other whizz-bangs that may also be present (which may be very useful to some I should say in fairness). I was also interested in system resource use and efficiency of getting a PDF open, navigated and read.

Foxit: it opens quicker than AR and consumes a comparable amount of memory (somewhat less actually when usage becomes larger). It has a much faster renderer than AR (I'm guessing a factor of 4 or 5 from subjective testing—but clearly noticeable). The installation file is small (~5mb instead of AR’s ~20mb), and its in-browser reader is very nippy. Not much else to say, it’s a no-brainer to replace AR with this if not PDF XChange.

PDF XChange: I really like this software—I prefer it to Foxit. It has a larger installation file than Foxit (~12mb), and its Firefox PDF reading plugin doesn’t seem to work for me (so I use Foxit’s), to state a couple of negatives first off. However, the way it deals with PDFs is very interesting. Both Foxit and AR render everything on the fly to keep memory usage down to a minimum. Both Foxit and AR do consume quite a lot of memory though when zoomed in on pages with complex content, so they aren’t always minimalist in their memory footprint. PDF XChange however uses memory very interestingly. Once it has rendered the document content visible on screen, it stores the bitmap in memory and navigation simply blits it back. This means navigation is incredibly smooth! However, this also means it can consume HUGE amounts of memory. I was a bit bothered by this at first—until I realised there's a setting to cap the memory usage. It’s a lot like Xara’s caching system in this respect. Most PDF documents (which contain text and simple images) load MUCH faster than even in Foxit. You can blaze through PDFs with this software. However, one area ripe for improvement is that if you load a really graphically intensive image, it can take a very long time to render, and nothing seems to display on the page until it is fully rendered. Initially when I first saw this, I thought it had failed or something. Once loaded of course, it is super fast. But these kinds of graphically intensive situations are likely less common for most. A little more on the memory usage: if you change the zoom level of a page, it needs to be re-rendered so a new blit can be used. The memory consumed by the previous blit on a per-page basis is released however; its memory handling is very good. The higher the zoom level, the more memory is needed to store the bigger bitmap. The memory cap is not on by default, but should be really. I limited it to about 300 mb and it works perfectly and never generates disc swapping issues. This software has really taken the back-and-crack ache out of PDF reading, and I'm just amazed I didn't look sooner.

I strongly recommend people replace AR immediately with both Foxit (for its browser reader) and PDF XChange for the standalone viewer. If PDF XChange fixed the issue with not displaying very complex PDF pages for a while when first opened, it would have received flawless marks from me. I think PDF XChange also has other features for free that you have to upgrade Foxit (read: pay for) to access, but I'm not completely sure about this.

Hope people find this info useful.

Xhris

[haakoo]

I use eXPert pdf reader http://www.visagesoft.com/products/pdfreader/index.php
Tested foxit and it isn't that much faster then eXPert.
though the rendering is much better for extensive vector work
besides all the nifty features in foxit are only available in the pro version
also it has a toolbar auto installing
These are very annoying things for a free product.

Hans

[haakoo]

Xhris,

I now understand what you mean with the LE trick,now the same vector art showed up in the eXPert reader just as good rendered as it did without the trick in foxit

Hans

[steve.ledger]

I've used Foxit for at least two years now, like Xhris I got sick of the slow-bloat of Adobe Reader.
I liked the UI of eXpert Hans, but found it much slower than Foxit, especially to initially open the file. Foxit opens almost instantly even on my older WindowsXP AMD3400 PC, which is mostly what I want from a PDF reader.
Can't say I've noticed Foxit install any unwanted toolbars though.

[haakoo]

To me on xp pro sp3 1.3ghz,1.5 ram laptop,both open in almost the same time
foxit may be a tad faster.
As for the toolbar,maybe it's just with the latest version as i downloaded it just when Xhris mentioned it.
Seemed it has some nice features but only in the (to purchase)pro version.

Hans

[Xhris]

I use eXPert pdf reader http://www.visagesoft.com/products/pdfreader/index.php...

Good find. I installed it and have determined that its screen rendering is comparable with Foxit (although the quality of redraw isn't as good--too blurry at the edges). It handles memory comparably with Foxit too. It is clearly better than AR, but its UI and user handling is outdated - you don't zoom into where you point, the wheel zoom increments are at the single percent level instead of smart values etc. I'd rank it 3rd out of 4 in the readers I've tested so far. But there's a big gap between it (the top 3) and AR.

However, it doesn't render my graphically intensive PDF made in Xara very well unlike all the others. Lots of graphical rendering errors, which is a blow.

[haakoo]

Yes,it is mainly used for pdf docs(txt)
as I don't use it(yet) for vector/raster work.
But your trick with the liquid color made it possible to have a better rendering in the reader.

Hans

[w00dy]

I use Portable Apps (www.portableapps.com) quite a bit and Sumatra Portable works a treat off my USB 2.0 stick. Sumatra standalone is also available at:

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/...pdf/index.html

[Xhris]

Sumatra is an interesting reader. It has similarities with PDF-XChange reader in that it blits pre-rendered content from memory, but is less efficient with memory handling; Sumatra processes the entire document to memory whether or not it will all be viewed, thereby consuming lots of memory possibly unnecessarily. And it seems to consume far more memory than PDF-XChange uses for the same content (a factor of 2 in some cases--which is significant when dealing with hundreds of k of RAM).

It seems to initially render the graphically complex documents faster than PDF-XChange, but subsequent renders when zoom is changed seem to render much slower. It does however provide feedback that it is rendering when the document is first opened (like PDF-XChange should do instead of leaving a blank screen). But it doesn't seem to render some complex graphical content correctly--like one of the previous viewers can't. It also suffers from a huge bug which is that 100% is not physical size; it's got Adobe-disease and must use a non-96ppi resolution for display, so things are smaller than they should be for a given zoom value. Combine this with its inferior interface (with no zoom level feedback and other basics) and surprisingly unintuitive implementation of document drag (uses acceleration which is not WYSIWYG), makes it not as good as PDF-XChange. If it sorts out it's memory usage inefficiencies, UI issues, and rendering problems, it would be better than Foxit. For reading simple text based documents though (i.e. most common ones), it's pretty good. I also notice it's beta so that may explain a few things.