[SOLVED] Is there a decent PDF viewer/printer for Ubuntu?

taylorkh · 02-28-2012, 05:45 PM

I have a large technical document which I am attempting to print. Most pages on my Brother HL5170DN laser in duplex mode and a few pages with color diagrams on my Brother 240c inkjet. Here are the programs I have tried and the issues I have experienced.

Evince - will not print duplex even though I tell it to. Nor will it print duplex if I have the printer set to duplex by default.

Okular - same thing - seems to be a known bug.

ePDFviewer - prints duplex when the printer is set to duplex by default. However, a number of lines of the document which view OK and print OK with the other programs are garbled when printed with this program.

Foxit - Linux version does not support duplex and it does not work on my 64 bit OS. I tried it on a 32 bit virtual machine but I don't have the color printer configured on the VM and it is a PITA do install. I am currently printing the thing with Foxit on a Windows XP VM.

XPDF is supposed to be good and is supposed to be in the Ubuntu repositories. But it is not in the 10.04 repository.

Is there anything better?

TIA,

Ken

snowday · 02-28-2012, 06:02 PM

Adobe Acrobat Reader is available for Linux:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AcrobatHowTo

Dark_Helmet · 02-28-2012, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by taylorkh

XPDF is supposed to be good and is supposed to be in the Ubuntu repositories. But it is not in the 10.04 repository.

I'm running ubuntu 10.04 on my server, and xpdf is certainly available:

Code:

$ aptitude search xpdf
p  xpdf                     - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite
p  xpdf-chinese-simplified  - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite -- simplified Chinese language support
p  xpdf-chinese-traditional - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite -- traditional Chinese language support
p  xpdf-common              - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite -- common files
p  xpdf-japanese            - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite -- Japanese language support
p  xpdf-korean              - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite -- Korean language support
p  xpdf-reader              - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite -- viewer for X11
p  xpdf-utils               - Portable Document Format (PDF) suite -- utilities

I don't use it much. So I can't comment on it's printing (in)flexibility.

EDIT:
and, just to be thorough: my list of repositories from /etc/apt/sources.list:

Code:

$ sed -n '/^deb/p' /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lucid-security multiverse
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid contrib non-free

taylorkh · 02-29-2012, 07:54 AM

xpdf is present in the repositories - my bad. Perhaps I searched for XPDF instead of xpdf? Perhaps I will give it a try.

Ken

jefro · 02-29-2012, 05:28 PM

I agree that Adobe's product is fine. If you want and the pdf is supported, you may be able to open it in OpenOffice. Not sure if libreoffice fixed it.

taylorkh · 03-02-2012, 08:57 AM

I tried xpdf - not very impressive as far as printing is concerned.

And as for the Adobe product... I had avoided that because the Windows versions were always quit bloated. I downloaded Reader 9.4.7 and it seems rather sprightly on Ubuntu. I guess will keep it installed on a VM for when I need it.

Thanks all!

Ken

Hammett · 03-02-2012, 02:04 PM

You can try as well Document Viewer from Gnome. Works faster than Adobe's one.

taylorkh · 03-02-2012, 02:38 PM

As I stated in my original post, Document Viewer (AKA Evince) will not print duplex.

Ken