PDF reader recomendation?

[beamcurrent]

Being dissatisfied with the latest Adobe reader. I felt the need for a lighter option, fleet of foot and just does what it says on the tin.

Having used the program "PDF creator" with some satisfaction I thought I would try their reader "PDF Architect", another mistake, it proved to be quite intrusive adding it's self to any number of other programs toolbars. It has many potentially useful options but these are all for the paid version which it keeps nagging me to buy. I do hope it will uninstall cleanly.

Which brings me to my request, can anyone suggest a light weight open source PDF? reader. The only other attributes I would like is for it to display PDFs in the Widows (10) explorer side box and on the browser (firefox)  

Brian

[Mark Hennessy]

For ages now I've used Sumatra PDF: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html

It's fairly lightweight and easy to use, so satisfies your first paragraph. However, I don't think it's open-source. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the "Explorer side box", but there's many different ways to use Explorer. Regarding Firefox, it has a built in PDF viewer, so that's what I use.

Either way, it's easy enough to try.

[ppppenguin]

Another vote for Sumatra as a lightweight PDF reader except that I found there were some PDFs that it failed to read and its form filling capabilities left a lot to be desired. I currently use the Foxit reader. This has some slightly annoying adware but is otherwise good.

FOr PDF creation I have a very old version of Adobe Acrobat that serves me adequately for the odd occasions I need it. I use the free CutePDF add-on to print to PDF from Word, Excel, Irfanview etc. Simple and unobtrusive. I think later versions of Word can print to PDF but I still use Office 2000.

[BusyBee]

I currently useFoxit Reader as well. I do find it has irritating bits, but it seems to work well enough, and maybe the issues I have are due to differences with previous packages.

Tracy

[beamcurrent]

Thanks for the advice, I've installed it and will see how I get on.

I did also down load the "portable" version for my USB stick of utilities.

Brian

[Alistair D]

I normally use Foxit as well. Irfanview with the PDF plugin is also very good. It opens very quickly and the document can be saved in other formats like .tif. My OCR package does not accept PDF files so need to convert them before scanning.

Al

[ppppenguin]

I've got 64 bit Irfanview and the set of plugins but it still won't open PDFs. Says it can't load Ghostscript. Looking at what Irfanview says it has installed as plugins, the list includes POSTSCRIPT.DLL which says it's for Ghostscript formats including PDF. In "Properties/Settings under PDF plugin options the box to "Use (new) PDF.DLL" for PDF loading (otherwise ol (old) Ghostscript plugin will be used)"

PS: Just looked at Properties/Settings Postscript options and ticked the Custom path box for Ghostscript location which was defaulted to: C:\Program Files\GS\Bin\gsdll32.dll
It works.

[Mark Hennessy]

I honestly can't remember why I stopped using Foxit, but it was a long time ago, and maybe they've fixed whatever it was that bothered me. I did think that perhaps I should give it another go, but searching around today, I see a lot of complaints about the ribbon UI and potential security issues, and the general vibe I'm getting is that it's not as well regarded today as it used to be.

I haven't come across a PDF file that Sumatra couldn't open. It sometimes gives a "can't render page" message when I've got dozens of files open, but a restart usually fixes that. It's possible the 64 bit version will be better in that regard (just changed over, so let's see).

Meanwhile, I've discovered that Sumatra is open source after all: https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf

As for forms, I've never filled a form in in a PDF file. Obviously missing out

[ppppenguin]

I switched from Foxit to Sumatra a few years ago because I felt that Foxit was getting too intrusive. Switched back because of form filling. Did a lot of that when I was helping Ruth with probate on her late father's estate. Most of the forms were fine. A few hadn't been designed correctly and I had to improvise a solution. I'd far rather do the form filling on my PC than print, write and scan.

Foxit has good print options with tiling etc. I actually use some of these. Unless Sumatra has been improved it's not as good.

Foxit is still too intrusive for my liking but it's a tolerable compromise for me.

[Old Sparky]

A late reply to this thread, perhaps, but I have both Sumatra and Foxit reader and use either with no problems, mainly to download service data, and other radio-related items, but occasionally for other purposes. Maybe I've been lucky but I'vehad no security issues with either of the above readers.