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http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/

The whole reader is 2.2mb, Adobe's is more than 10 times that and foxit still has the same functionality!

While I realize this is supposed to be an amusing turn of phrase, there are actually quite a few tools out there. A few that I like are:

PDFBox - OSS Library for modifying PDFs on the fly.
FOP - Use XSL-FO to design printable page layouts in XML, then use FOP to transform them to PDF documents.
Foxit Tools - Alternative to the overpriced Adobe products.
OpenOffice - The built-in support for PDFs is absolutely wonderful. I rarely give out DOC files anymore.
FPDF - PHP PDF generation tools.
iText - A great library for your own custom PDF generation.

Those are just a few. The PDF format itself is actually not too bad. (When Adobe isn't breaking it with needless revisions, that is.) It's biggest strength is that the psuedo-text nature of the format allows one to diagnose the internals of a file pretty easily. Its greatest weakness is that things like text fields are needlessly convoluted. At the end of the day, though, it's a pretty good format.

Have you tried Foxit? http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Try Foxit Reader. It's small and quite fast.

There are more alternatives than just FoxIt. Search for Sumatra PDF, eXPert PDF for the Windows solutions. On Linux, one should already knows about evince, kpdf, xpdf, etc.

This said, Adobe Reader is still the most powerful one. It is the only one that displays non-ASCII symbols in the bookmarks correctly on my Chinese-locale Windows. It is the only one that allows me to copy Chinese characters in the PDF to the clipboard.

According to the site
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/pricing.htm
The foxit pdf reader is $39. per user. Hardly free.

The format isn't bloated and shitty (it's a subset of PostScript), it's Adobe's reader that's bloated and shitty, and they want to make it as shitty as possible. There are alternatives out there, like FoxIt.

PDF as a format isn't going anywhere, since it's becoming the de facto standard format in the print industry.

Please stop raping the PDF format.

Thanks!

- The Internet.

P.S. Foxit.

The free, Foxit reader is small, fast and compatible - for the Winders crowd. It's also a portable app - put it on yer USB.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

"In the future all software will approach the condition of muzak"

install Foxit if they start pumping out Ads to PDF files.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

There is one pretty good one, and it's not even proprietary.

Also, you can download gigabytes of pdf books through P2P networks.

It's improved, but in my opinion it's still slower and more bloated than it needs to be. Foxit reader has a much smaller footprint and is (in my opinion) much more responsive.

Although PDFs are great when you view them in Xpdf or Evince or the Mac OS X viewer thing, the common PDF viewer for Windows - Adobe Acrobat Reader - is a bloated piece of crap that makes Firefox freeze while it loads as a browser plugin.

So ODFs would be better for viewing in Firefox? Seems to me they would be even slower, while waiting for OpenOffice to load.

Anyway, for faster speed you can use the 2MB Foxit PDF reader. I don't think an ODF reader would be easy to do in that size/speed, if possible at all. (But who knows - 15 years ago word processors fit on a floppy or two, and a reader would be a subset of its functionality.)

but the foxit reader has a big problem, the search function doesn't always work http://www.foxitsoftware.com/support/techsupport/showfaq.htm#phnm_02 and the copy/paste function is unreliable http://www.foxitsoftware.com/support/techsupport/showfaq.htm#phnm_01

but the foxit reader has a big problem, the search function doesn't always work http://www.foxitsoftware.com/support/techsupport/showfaq.htm#phnm_02 and the copy/paste function is unreliable http://www.foxitsoftware.com/support/techsupport/showfaq.htm#phnm_01

Foxit. Many Windows users here on Slashdot are praising it.

a good reader alternative for pdf on windows.

This is a good one. I use it regularly.

The only one i've heard of (for Windows) is Foxit PDF reader, which is about 2mb - never tried it myself though. On linux, Evince works great, and had no issues with everything i've thrown at it.

Oh, I missed to point out what you missed. From http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Foxit Reader itself is free. As to add-ons, the critical add-ons are free while advanced add-ons are non-free. For example, you can use the following functions for free:

* View or print PDF document
* Basic PDF form operations i.e. filling out PDF forms and printing them out
* Advanced PDF form operations, such as saving filled-out forms and import/export forms, free for personal usage only
* View PDF as text
* Critical add-ons, such as UI language package, JPEG2000/JBIG decoder, CJK package, GDI+ for early Windows version, etc

The followings are several examples of non-free, advanced add-ons:

* Foxit Reader Pro Pack is not free. It includes the following functions:
o Annotation
o Text viewer and text converter
o Form filler
o Spell checker
o Advanced editing tools, including loupe tool, measure tools, image tool, file attachment tool, link tools, annotation selection tool, and more

Actually without Pro Pack, you are still able to annotate a PDF document and print it out. However when you save the annotated document, it will be stamped with an evaluation mark on the top-right corner of the annotated pages. If you purchase a Pro Pack add-on, then there will be no evaluation mark.

One more reason not to upgrade to IE7.

Cheaper? Foxit Reader for Windows is listed as $39.00.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is free. How is that cheaper? Am I missing something?

Another good reason to use Foxit, small, robust and free (standard version)

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

It takes two eternities to start up and it hogs a mind-boggling 50mb+ on your hard drive - A true testament to how far "software engineering" has come. Sigh.

Use the Foxit Reader instead - less than 5mb in size, and fires up instantly: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

I found Adobe Reader so slow, bloated, and annoying that I switched to Foxit Reader, which is much smaller and faster. Can anyone say if the vulnerability applies to Foxit as well?

Solution to the PDF issue:

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/

For Windows, I'd recommend Foxit reader. Opens instantly, and no pesky update whining every two days...

I use foxit pdf reader. I'm not sure if it has all the functionality of adobe with forms and all, but it certainly opens much faster and does everything I need it to do.
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

and don't use Adobe's reader. Don't use Adobe's Acrobat either, if you don't have to. At least in the Windows world, there are plenty of alternatives out there, that often work better and more efficiently than Adobe's products, and are sometimes (get this) FREE! Are they as secure as Adobe's products? Who knows. For that matter, who knows how secure Adobe software is: big companies don't necessarily turn out more secure software than smaller ones. They can apply more programmers to a project and crank out more lines of code ... but that generally makes the product less secure because there's more room for error.

I mean if you just want a PDF viewer that works standalone and in Firefox, try Foxit Reader. Fast (very fast), lightweight and free for the download. You can upgrade to the Pro version if you need the extra capability, but for simple viewing the free version is great. I use PDF Creator to convert printer output to PDF files. Also free, and works very well.

I've long considered Adobe's PDF Reader to be inefficient bloatware and haven't used it in years. The fact that it's got security problems is one less reason to use it.

Foxit Reader is the canonical 3rd-party viewer for Windows: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Macs have Preview, Linux has Evince and others.

The Foxit PDF reader is pretty great, and I often recommend it to my clients. Not only will it be a good temporary fix for this exploit, but it opens PDF documents very quickly.

Windows:
http://www.download.com/Foxit-PDF-Reader/3000-2079_4-10634896.html?tag=lst-0-1

Linux:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/desklinux/

There's so much third-party support for PDF in so many areas that there's little reason to buy Adobe's bloatware anyway. Amazing how their PDF reader has turned into such a POC when there are much more efficient offerings out there.

If you're a Windows user and you just want to render printer output into PDF, give PDF Creator a shot. Somebody else here on Slashdot recommended it a couple of months ago, and it seems to work well. It's also open source, GPLed, and free for personal or commercial use.

So, it's not impossible to beat a major company at its own game. Difficult maybe, but not impossible.

FoxIt PDF reader: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/
7-zip file archiver: http://www.7-zip.org/

Other nice un-bloated Windows utilities I'll add:

V, the file viewer
Foxit Reader for viewing PDFs
Crimson Editor for text files, though I more often use emacs.

I like Opera, modo, foobar2000, VLC Media Player, 7zip, Pidgin, Process Explorer, uTorrent, TCPView, Foxit Reader, and WinDirStat.

Foxit Reader

Offtopic, but actually, PDF isn't bad if you're using a decent (non-Adobe) reader. Foxit's quite good on the Windows front.

... Foxit Reader is pretty good. (and fast!)

For #1 : Did you try Foxit PDF? I've replaced Adobe's with this one on Windows because it's very fast and 2mb in size. There is a linux version, closed source, sdk available. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/desklinux/

Apologies for the OT, but a lot of people seem to be upset about the (lack of) quality in Adobe Reader, so I thought I'd quickly mention my favorite alternative: Foxit Reader. Works with embedded and desktop versions of Windows and Linux (no sign of a Mac port, sorry) and doesn't require rebooting or anything when installing or updating. It starts instantly and has a much lower footprint. It doesn't have a browser plugin in the usual sense (.pdf files open in another window, which is fine with me at least) but embedded PDFs will display correctly. For the icing on the cake, according to Secunia it doesn't seem like anybody has found any vulnerabilities in its rendering or Javascript support yet (such vulnerabilities are one of the biggest driving forces behind Adobe Reader updates).

Now, my last recruitment company got my resume in PDF only.

And they were still able to strip your contact details out and replace them with their own... Foxit PDF Editor & PDFedit. There's several others out there as well...

Foxit Reader, a free PDF reader app. Works pretty good.

FYI on a PC
use Foxit instead of that Adobe bloatware
works as a plugin in IE and if you have the IETab plugin in firefox add a rule in the sites config for
*.pdf
then when you click a link in firefox with a PDF it will switch to the IE engine that will in turn load the Foxit plugin and voila, PDF reading in Firefox without any of the bloat

If you're using Windows, try Foxit, it is orders of magnitude faster to open and render than Adobe Reader.

For vector graphics, check out Adobe Illustrator's nearest competitor, CorelDraw. For bitmap image editing, check Corel PhotoPaint (part of the CorelDraw suite) or Corel's PaintShop Pro software. For desktop publishing, consider QuarkXpress or the open source app, Scribus. For making PDF files, look into Foxit PDF Creator or PDF Creator. I don't believe there are many low priced or open-source alternatives that are comparable to Front Page or DreamWeaver. However, take a look at Kompozer (an improved version of the open-source NVU). For what it's worth, that's my advice for low cost alternatives to the Adobe Creative Suite.

I'm pretty sure that Foxit Reader supports notes and comments. It is free (as in beer, I think not open source). It is very small and independent; I don't install it, I just put the 4mb "Foxit Reader.exe" in C:\Program Files and associate it with pdf files. It's fast, too.

Okay, I just checked, and it allows you to type over the PDF and save it but the free version leaves watermarks.

I will have to agree with other people saying that PDF *is* the way to save web pages for future reference (i used to use MHT but it is propietary and you cant add notes).

For the annotations I would suggest the FoxIT PDF reader (free) and buy the Pro Pack [US$40 ](one of the few softwares I have found so useful and at good price to actually buy) which will allow you to add annotations and mark the text among other things.

I will use this post to ask if anyone knows of an open source alternative to this the ProPack that lets you add comments, marking and other basic editing features. I would think that is something *lot* of people want.

I will have to agree with other people saying that PDF *is* the way to save web pages for future reference (i used to use MHT but it is propietary and you cant add notes).

For the annotations I would suggest the FoxIT PDF reader (free) and buy the Pro Pack [US$40 ](one of the few softwares I have found so useful and at good price to actually buy) which will allow you to add annotations and mark the text among other things.

I will use this post to ask if anyone knows of an open source alternative to this the ProPack that lets you add comments, marking and other basic editing features. I would think that is something *lot* of people want.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

I actually UNISTALLED Acrobat reader from one of my laptop after having intalled this one. Perfect replacement so far and not bloated at all.