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Adobe Reader 7.0 Coming to Linux

Posted by Hemos on from the get-er-done dept.

Sometimes_Rational writes "There is now one less thing for Windows and Mac users to point to when claiming desktop usability superiority. While not officially listed in Adobe's download page, you can get Adobe Reader 7.0 for Linux from the company's FTP server according to this article at The Inquirer , which also has a review. The upshot is that Reader 7.0 for Linux is as bloated as its Windows and Mac siblings, but it loads much faster and is more useable than version 5. I imagine that this will get loads of comments about how Reader for Linux headed downhill after version 4. Or was it 3?"

9 of 454 comments (clear)

  1. Direct Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the impatent:

    ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/7x/7.0/e nu/

  2. Evince+Poppler - free / usable rendering. by snickell · · Score: 5, Informative

    Or you could use a PDF/PS viewer that's nicely integrated with your desktop, and has a sane feature-set and good usability. On GNOME we've got Evince, and on KDE there's KPDF. Evince (and now KPDF, I believe) is backed by the Freedesktop.org Poppler library (which is in turn backed by Cairo which can use hardware acceleration for faster PDF rendering). Kristian (as referenced earlier today on slashdot re: wobbly windows) is hard at work on adding nice features needed for desktop apps. Poppler is a fork from the Xpdf rendering code (with the maintainer's blessing, since he was using his own rendering infrastructure and didn't want to mix two backends into Xpdf).

    We've been doing a lot of experimenting with making the "core features" of Evince better for on-screen reading, rather than working on the sort of extra packed in features in Acrobat. For example, when you press page down, evince will slightly darken the area on the screen where your page was as it smooth scrolls. That lets your eye track its position much easier, so once the scroll is over you just keep reading without a visual "seek". KPDF is cool too, so either way you swing you've got a good choice.

    Acroread 7.0 is using GTK+ for its widgets, but this hardly makes it have a native "feel". Use it for a minute and its pretty clear its a cross-platform app port.

  3. kpdf rocks by nileshbansal · · Score: 5, Informative

    Try kpdf 0.4 (one that comes with KDE 3.4)? This is what a pdf viewer should look like. 1. Type ahead search. 2. Easy copy-paste. With acrobat reader it is not possible to select/copy a paragraph in 2 column format document, but with kpdf one can easily do that. 3. Can watch for changes in the viewed file and update the view accordingly. 4. Presentation mode. 5. KDE app. Native look and feel. Can use kio_slaves. 6. No bloat. Open source.

    1. Re:kpdf rocks by ashayh · · Score: 5, Informative

      You cannot fill forms with Kpdf. Thats its only problem.(And possibly encrypted Pdfs)

      Apart from that, I'd like to give kongrats and big thanks to the Kpdf and Kde devs for making a GREAT pdf viewer with KDE 3.4 ! Its got the best combination of features and speed. And a big jump from the earlier version. I think they now collaborate with the xpdf guys. I hope they can find a solution for the forms problem.

      I'd like to remind people that apart from Open Office, ALL apps(that I've tried) in Gnome and KDE, that have the Print command on a menu can create Pdf files.

      Acrobat 7 is somehow slower for me than 5. (Like the WinXP version 7 was slower than 6) Acro 7 takes forever to startup as Adobe insists on loading plugins I would never use. You could remove the plugin files that can be a hassle sometimes.

  4. you can get acrobat reader 7 to load fast by MarcoAtWork · · Score: 5, Informative

    on windows as well, you just need to go in the installation directory, then in the Plugins subdirectory and remove EVERYTHING BUT these 3 files (just move them somewhere else so you can put them back if you have a problem)

    EWH32.api
    Search5.api
    Search.api

    after I did that and disabled the splash screen Acrobat reader 7 loads up nearly instantaneously on XP. I'm not taking credit for this, I found this tip somewhere I can't quite remember right now and it surely works!

    --
    -- the cake is a lie
    1. Re:you can get acrobat reader 7 to load fast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Put them in a directory called "Optional" and the program loads them when they are required. No clue why this isn't default behavior for some of the more obscure plugins.

  5. Re:I'll get it now by El+Cubano · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bloat or not, it is still the best reader for Adobe Acrobat files.

    It's only bloated if you have a problem with sacrificing ~100 MB of hard drive space. Seriously who worries about that on a reasonably modern desktop? I just bought to 160 GB drives the other day for US$ 80 each. Drive space is not a problem.

    I have been using the new version for a week and much more impressed with it than I was with version 5.

    Here are the things I like:

    • Uses GTK. I am not GTK fanboy (I prefer GNUStep), but at least it is better than that awful interface the previous versions had.
    • Mozilla plugin that works just like it does on the popular legacy operating system still floating around out there.
    • It is basically a tar file, no hidden toolbars to install for you.
    • Way snappier than the previous version.
    • No more having to mess with numlock to get pgup/pgdn working.
    • Has preference settings for a MUA a web browser and several other apps you can launch for various functions (e.g., I open a PDF in Firefox and click the email button to see it open a new compose window in Thunderbird with the PDF I am viewing in Firefox already attached. Sweet!)

    Things I don't like:

    • The went to that blasted MDI. I want every flipping document to open in its own window. Is that so hard? Is it too much to ask?
    • The OK button in all the dialogs is squished, quite annoying.
    • You must manually include it in your menu. It should at least hit the majors (GNOME, KDE).
  6. Re:xpdf by molnarcs · · Score: 5, Informative
    Have you tried it? Adobe7 loads as fast as xpdf (approximately), but it renders documents a lot faster :) btw I was surprised at the "news", for portupgrade (freebsd) replaced my acrobat5 to 7 a week or so ago. I was thinking the same way you did, but my expectations were based on my experience with 5. When I tried it actually, I replaced kghostview as the default pdf viewer to acrobat in firefox (and elsewhere) - because it is fast, it displays pdf correctly - not that xpdf doesn't, I just like the fact that I don't have to zoom all the time (and wait) because acro fits the image/document to (full)screen automatically. It also has niceties like settings for LCD displays (I own one, so this is a godsend).

    Try it first, compare it with xpdf, and choose what suits your need - just dont' discard it offhand, because it is a Good Thing >)

  7. Re:I'll get it now by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Informative
    It's only bloated if you have a problem with sacrificing ~100 MB of hard drive space.

    That's not the only issue. Bloated programs use more system memory. Loading a huge program will often knock good chunks of your other running tasks into swap memory, or at the very least flush out part of your cached I/O buffers. This can cause a significant hit to your overall system responsiveness, especially on machines without boatloads of physical RAM.