Acrobat Reader Replacement

[mubs]

I found Foxit Reader for Windows; anybody know if it is any good?

 

[Mercutio]

Actually, Acrobat 7 isn't nearly as criminally horrid as previous versions. Just remember to rid yourself of the plug-in version of the reader and set the X-PDF MIME type to open in Reader instead of AcroExch and it's tolerable.

 

[Groltz]

Actually, Acrobat 7 isn't nearly as criminally horrid as previous versions. Just remember to rid yourself of the plug-in version of the reader and set the X-PDF MIME type to open in Reader instead of AcroExch and it's tolerable.

It also helps to hit your new A.R. install with PDF SpeedUp. (Scroll down to get to it) I've found it noticeably faster afterwards especially on lower-powered machines.

 

[Tannin]

Nice to know that Acrobat 7 is better, Merc. Acro 5 is getting a bit long in the tooth but I'm damned if I'll crud-up people's machines by loading Acrobloat 6 on them, so it sounds like 7 is the way to go.

 

[Mercutio]

Groltz, does the "speedup" program do anything besides the well-known trick of removing most of the stuff from the Acrobat plugin folder?

 

[Groltz]

Yes.


Here is a screenshot. Everything it does is shown including the list of plugins it disables.

 

[i]

I thought I'd read that one of the improvements to Acrobat 7.0 is that it doesn't load all the available plug-ins at startup, rather it loads them on demand. I forget where I read that ... was it here?

 

[sechs]

Possibly... its true.

Foxit is a pretty cruddy piece of software. It doesn't interpret some PDF correctly or respect certain security settings.

 

[LunarMist]

What are people using nowadays for reading PDFs? I want an app that can be downloaded once and installed on multiple Windows computers not connected to the web.

 

[sedrosken]

I use ePDFView here on my cloudbook. But you said for Windows. Hmm. I hear FoxIt is pretty good? I use straight Adobe Reader on the Thinkpad, occasionally settling for the Chrome PDF viewer plugin.

 

[mubs]

I've been using Foxit for the last several years (I bought their basic editor). It's better than Acrobat. But for maximum compatibility, for fillable forms issued by government and financial institutions, I have to fall back on Acrobat. I have both installed, with Foxit the default.

 

[Tannin]

Wow! people still use Foxit? Mega-bloatware with a truly horrible user interface. Avoid at all costs. Well, it's probably better than the Adobe product, by then so is leprocy. Foxit was good ... about 8 years ago. It's been pox since around 2010.

For small, fast, and utterly fuss-free PDF reading with a user interface that not only doesn't get in your way but can be adjusted to suit your preference, PDF Exchange is hard to beat.

(No idea about its ability to fill out forms and suchlike. Never yet found a need for that. The only forms I've ever had to fill out from a PDF have required my signature, so you have to print them in any case.)

 

[CougTek]

I use Sumatra PDF Reader. Despite the Frontpage-like website and blinding yellow color, it's a good little piece of software. Light and efficient. Available in 64-bit (that's an added safety as it doesn't run in compatibility mode).

 

[CougTek]

BTW, I didn't know about PDF Xchange (saw the name a few times, but never bothered investigating). The Viewer is still available, but development for it has stopped. The Editor is still maintained. I'll give it a shot.

If it's available in French, I might use it at the office instead of the other so-so softwares we've tried.

...and it is available in French! Less than half the price of Nitro PDF Pro and a fraction of Nuance, Bluebeam Revu and Adobe Acrobat Standard.

Thanks.

 

[mubs]

Tannin, my copy of Foxit Editor (not reader) is several years old. Since I had paid for it, and it is a perpetual licence, I continue to use it for my minimal editing needs.

Coug, where are you seeing this info? I can't seem to find the webs site for PDF Xchange; it's mostly pox sites like download.com, file-hippo, etc., or a couple of PDF Xchange sites in European languages I can't read and Google doesn't translate. Link for English site please?

 

[LunarMist]

Tannin, my copy of Foxit Editor (not reader) is several years old. Since I had paid for it, and it is a perpetual licence, I continue to use it for my minimal editing needs.

Coug, where are you seeing this info? I can't seem to find the webs site for PDF Xchange; it's mostly pox sites like download.com, file-hippo, etc., or a couple of PDF Xchange sites in European languages I can't read and Google doesn't translate. Link for English site please?

Tracker-Software is the company.

 

[mubs]

Thanks Lunar.

 

[LunarMist]

It is not the easiest to find.
The free version does quite a bit though there is some learning about the interface. Mainly I wanted the stand alone download (Abode only offers that to business) and a version that is regularly updated.
Thanks, Tony.