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thach.trung.ngoc 10-23-2010 09:27 PM

xpdf renders page slowly
 
Hi all,

I am currently using slackware-current with fluxbox is my window manager. I aim to have a light weight environment. But xpdf renders pdf very slowly. Are there any one having this issue before. Please help me out

As alternative, i have to install wine and use Sumatra PDF.

Thanks

zoran119 10-23-2010 10:14 PM

my xpdf loads quickly, but scrolling is BAD... cpu goes nuts, laptop fans start spinning... it's bad. don't know how to fix it. i installed epdfview (from sbo), it's lightweight but no continuous page view :(

sahko 10-23-2010 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thach.trung.ngoc (Post 4137313)
As alternative, i have to install wine and use Sumatra PDF.

Why not using something like evince or epdfview from slackbuilds.org ?
If xpdf fits your needs there are many other native pdf readers that will do so as well.

allend 10-24-2010 12:38 AM

This may be due to the content in your pdf documents. If your documents contain commonly used Windows fonts, then it may help to enable these fonts and correct the path to these fonts in /etc/xpdf.rc
In my /etc/xpdf.rc ( as compared to the Slackware defaults in /etc/xpdfrc.new ) I have:
Code:

diff /etc/xpdfrc.new /etc/xpdfrc
32,45c32,45
< displayFontT1 Times-Roman            /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021003l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Times-Italic            /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021023l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Times-Bold              /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021004l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Times-BoldItalic                /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021024l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Helvetica                      /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019003l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Helvetica-Oblique              /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019023l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Helvetica-Bold          /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019004l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Helvetica-BoldOblique  /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019024l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Courier                /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022003l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Courier-Oblique        /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022023l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Courier-Bold            /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022004l.pfb
< displayFontT1 Courier-BoldOblique    /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022024l.pfb                                                     
< displayFontT1 Symbol                  /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/s050000l.pfb                                                     
< displayFontT1 ZapfDingbats            /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/d050000l.pfb
---
> displayFontT1 Times-Roman            /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n021003l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Times-Italic            /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n021023l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Times-Bold              /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n021004l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Times-BoldItalic                /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n021024l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Helvetica                      /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n019003l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Helvetica-Oblique              /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n019023l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Helvetica-Bold          /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n019004l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Helvetica-BoldOblique  /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n019024l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Courier                /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n022003l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Courier-Oblique        /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n022023l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Courier-Bold            /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n022004l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Courier-BoldOblique    /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/n022024l.pfb
> displayFontT1 Symbol                  /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/s050000l.pfb
> displayFontT1 ZapfDingbats            /usr/share/libwmf/fonts/d050000l.pfb
59c59
< #psFile                      "|lpr -Pmyprinter"
---
> psFile                        "|lpr -PDCP110C"
65c65
< #psPaperSize          letter
---
> psPaperSize          A4
84,86c84,86
< #enableT1lib          yes
< #enableFreeType              yes
< #antialias            yes
---
> enableT1lib          yes
> enableFreeType                yes
> antialias            yes
91c91
< #urlCommand  "firefox -remote 'openURL(%s)'"
---
> urlCommand    "firefox -remote 'openURL(%s)'"

I often use xpdf to read pdf documents as it is very quick to open and render for me.

Ilgar 10-24-2010 09:27 AM

I can confirm this on 13.1. I can't remember if it worked correctly on 13.0, but something went wrong in one of the last two releases. Xpdf used to be fast before. I now use evince as the default viewer.

BrZ 10-24-2010 10:14 AM

I have one old machine still running 13.0 and Xpdf is very slow to render and scroll a simple six pages file. A quick search pointed to some 'floating point' issue with gcc44.

Bertical 10-24-2010 10:37 AM

I've found that recompiling it using the same config/make flags in xpdf.Slackbuild speeds it up a lot. It also makes it 40Kb smaller !

x111 10-24-2010 11:00 AM

You might want to try Foxit Reader. I use the binary downloaded from its web site. Works like a charm, no questions asked.

Richard Cranium 10-24-2010 11:24 AM

I haven't found a document yet that xpdf renders slowly. Is there a pdf file out on the web somewhere that those of us who aren't having troubles can try to see what the problem may be?

kris108 10-24-2010 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thach.trung.ngoc (Post 4137313)
... fluxbox is my window manager. I aim to have a light weight environment. But xpdf renders pdf very slowly...

xpdf renderes ANY pdf files slower than Adobe-s Acrobat Reader for Linux, xpdf is only fast if you don't open any documents.

I like it lightweight too but in this case Adobe-s product is the "lighter" one.

GazL 10-24-2010 12:48 PM

I don't care about fast. I care about secure and although all software is susceptible to vulnerabilities, it seems to me that Adobe have had more than their fair share in recent times. I simply don't have any faith in their ability to write secure software at this point.

xpdf works well enough for me.

lostzinzthought 10-24-2010 01:11 PM

I've been using okular but just to see whats going wrong I loaded up a .pdf in xpdf and it ran fine for me except when I tried to scroll (scrolling took a second for it to load the rest of the page, but it wasn't that bad) but switching pages was almost as fast as okular, and it opened much more rapidly.
This is on a Slack13.1 install and I've never played with any settings or configuration or anything, just xpdf as it came with my install of slackware.
So, I'm not sure if your problem is the scroll speed or not, but, I don't see that it's a significant loss in performance really. Maybe I just got lucky with my install though?

thach.trung.ngoc 10-25-2010 08:16 AM

Hi All,

Thanks for all of your help

I did create a folder font, in xpdfrc, I added as below

fontdir /home/your_directory/.fonts

The speed improves, but still a little bit slow, but i am quite happy with xpdf now.

Again, thanks everyone


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