Goodbye Adobe Reader Hello Sumatra

Posted by Martin in Operating Systems, Windows, software  Tags: , , , ,

1

Mar



I always thought that free meant that I did not have to do anything to get the free item or service. I had a problem with the Adobe PDF Reader and a huge 35 Megabyte PDF which took ages to load and decided to install all the latest versions of alternative PDF viewers. The Adobe PDF Reader was not rendering the pdf file properly and it took ages to scroll and change settings.

I first thought it could be my computer because it’s not the newest anymore as you might know. A quick search revealed the portable application Sumatra which I had heard about before and the decision to install it was made quickly. The installation was unproblematic and I changed the default viewer from Adobe PDF Reader to Sumatra.

A click later showed a Please Wait Rendering notice which quickly was replaced by the first page of the pdf file that I was going to take a look at. I was able to scroll two pages and was greeted by another Please Wait Rendering notice. Although this was not what I expected the overall performance was much better.

Sumatra seems to use some sort of advanced caching which reduced the rendering period to a minimum.  The pages that were rendered already where very responsive and I was able to take a look at them without further delays.

I’m not saying that Sumatra is the perfect solution but it is far better than the orginal PDF reader by Adobe. It would be interesting to know if you ran into similar troubles and if you did find a solution for them. I have tried other PDF readers in the past but not under the aspect of loading huge PDF documents into them.


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21 Users Commented In This Post

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jajagerman says:

what about foxit?

Steve says:

Fox It works for me. Light and quick. Big PDFs are no problem.

Words Within says:

Foxit Reader is a really speedy app too!

oozish says:

Foxit Reader is even better! google boyz./

vance says:

so is this a better than foxit reader? or an alternative to foxit? I have stop using Adobe Reader because it slow and it has useless features that makes it a bloatware.

wonta says:

try foxit reader. my long time favorite.

Zoob99 says:

I also had problems with large PDF files loading very slowly with Adobe and I now use Foxit. I use version 2.0, since versions after 2.0 have more bloat which was one of the things I was trying to avoid by moving from Adobe Reader. I just wanted a simple PDF reader that does the job and I’m happy with Foxit. I have also tried Sumatra and found it to be a competent PDF reader too.

Roman ShaRP says:

I ditched Adobe Reader some years ago, and using FoxIt instead. I tried Sumatra, but it’s functionality seems poor for me.

zzzZZZzzz says:

The text selection doesn’t work well in FoxitReader..

zzzZZZzzz says:

I’ve just tested Sumatra.. Well it even doesn’t seem to have a text selection tool; or I cannot find it.

So for instant I keep the bloated Acrobat Reader.. it fits best to my needs.

MM says:

My own observations are contrary to yours. I find that Adobe Reader 8 is actually snappier to deal with heavy pdf files (specially graphic intensive ones) than Sumatra, Foxit or PDF XChange Viewer.

The problem with Adobe Reader is that it is slow to startup and heavy on the resources, but once it is loaded it is the fastest pdf viewer around. The Adobe Reader Lite version ameliorates most of these problems.

If all you use is the occasional small PDF with a bit of text, Sumatra is great. I use Sumatra as my default viewer, but for heavy duty Adobe is hard to beat.

Martin says:

I might have to add that I’m using a PDF Reader only for viewing purposes and no other fancy stuff.

I have not tried Foxit for a long time, might give it a shot.

noris says:

The only features that sumatra lack of is zooming using CTRL + mousescroll with available in both Foxit and Reader.

Bill says:

I used Foxit for years, but recently switched to PDF XChange Viewer. For my eyes, the latter renders the text more clearly. Try a side-by-side comparison.

Tobey says:

1 more satisfied Foxit user here, never had a reason to try another viewer..

Kip says:

I prefer PDF Xchange Viewer too - especially since a free portable version is now available. No installation and a set of markup tools make it a must-have
http://www.docu-track.com/downloads/users/

Jawwad says:

I have to agree that PDF XChange is the best for now.

Zoob says:

Thanks you guys for the info on PDF XChange Viewer. I had never heard of it, so I downloaded it and gave it a run. I was quite impressed with it. It even had tabs at the top, though I don’t often have more than one PDF file open at once so I don’t know if I’ll get much use out of that feature. I found it to render the text in a similar fashion to Foxit so I think I will be sticking with Foxit for the time being.

Ignasi says:

- Sumatra is GPL.
- For me, it’s faster than Foxit and PDF x-Viewer.
- No installation, just unzip (drool).
- I have ALL that readers, but I open 90% of my PDFs with Sumatra.

Just my 2 cents :)

bill says:

FoxIt text search = pitiful. No boolean capabilities in 2.2 and apparently not 2.3.

bill says:

Adobe Reader 8.12 boolean search says it finds x number of PDF files, but displays nothing in the results box! Previous version 7.08, although slow, worked.

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