Following the suggestion that I post my first question in the Newbie forum, let me first introduce myself. I'm a computer user. Not a software writer, hardware tech, just a user. And have been since way before DOS, and, I think, CPM.

I'm covering my a** a bit, having seen references here to those of us who find Linux complicated as being either stupid, or stubborn.

I thought I had purchased my many computers, not merely rented them from Microsoft. I grew tired of MS removing my OS's and replacing them as they chose. When they grabbed a several month old laptop with 8.1, deleted it, then, after four hours of attempting to install 10, then failed to reinstall 8.1, leaving me without an OS, I went to my local PC shop and had them install Linux.

For the most part I've really enjoyed the system and am considering installing it on a couple other machines. But I have two issues. No Adobe Reader download available, so I find options such as Evince. But following the requirements of installing packages I don't have a clue about has me at a standstill. I'm used to downloading and clicking on an executable file and following simple "click this" instructions.

Is there a site that can put this all together for me?

Second problem, my HP printer doesn't want to see my system without my having gone through steps not unlike the ones I can't manage for the doc reader.

Same question - is there a site that will do this for me?

My cheapo grandkids' tablets were easy to set up for wireless printing.

So, this is much longer than I'd anticipated, but hello, and help, please.

I use xpdf ; others have recommended Okular and Notable PDF.

stop right there!
you really have to wrap your head around linux package management, one of the most outstanding and glorious features of almost all gnu/linux.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_manager
you do NOT install things the windows way.
instead, your system (did you say which one? ubuntu? linux mint?) uses a dedicated software to manage ALL installed software.
usually this software has command line tools as well as graphical frontends.

In the KDE desktop environment it's Okular (installed from packages as ondoho says).

As previously mentioned, Okular works well.
There is a old version of Adobe Reader for Linux still in circulation, version 9.5.5-1.
Most Linux distributions have hplip installed, which is the HP utility for installing and managing your hP printer. Easy to use. If that is not available you can open a browser and in the location/url box type,

localhost:631

hit enter, and take it from there.

Hello and welcome to LQ.

You'd be surprised that maybe your grand kids could figure this stuff out. It's just they way they think and how fast they can access data. little stinkers.

Anways... post a single thought on each item may help us answer it better. Maybe a mod can cut parts out.

Depending on your distro (and I don't know that do I?) you go to your software manager first. It should have a search feature. type in pdf (that is the search word) and see what options you have. It may be that your distro also offers a one click effort for HP printers.

The Adobe ftp site still has the last version of Adobe Reader for Linux. It is not supported anymore but still works on many if not most systems. It works on Centos 7 as I have it.

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader...9.x/9.5.5/enu/

As for Linux pdf viewers most desktop environments will have their own default application installed. Gnome will come with Evince and KDE comes with Okular.

The only difference between Adobe Reader and the Linux alternatives is the ability to fill online pdf forms with data and send the results to a server. Linux pdf viewers are simply viewers and don't really support this data collection. If all you want to do is simply view pdfs Okular and Evince will do the job and may look better and flashier than Adobe Reader.

Okular will allow one to "fill in the boxes."

If you have Ubuntu (or almost any other distro), then you should have a PDF viewer installed. You should have a menu where you can find it, but the name is going to vary as there are many available. If you have a PDF file, navigate to it with the file manager, double-click, and see what pops up!

If you have Ubuntu (it really helps if you put your distro in you profile as I've done), here's a start
https://help.ubuntu.com/
https://community.ubuntu.com/contribute/documentation/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/

For an HP printer, it's best to install with HP's own software, hplip, which you should have.
http://www.hplipopensource.com/node/365

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks all. It is Ubuntu. I'm traveling and will address it when I return.

Mostly, yes, but some PDF forms seem to require Windows software.

1 members found this post helpful.

Master PDF Editor works well too. https://code-industry.net/free-pdf-editor/

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the reference.
It is working very well.

1 members found this post helpful.

Just wanted to thank everyone and give an update. After reading your posts I started searching my system and lo! Evince was there. I was able to open the document, fill in the blanks, submit it and conclude my business with the company involved.