Adobe To Release Full PDF Specification to ISO
nickull writes "Adobe announced it will release the entire PDF specification (current version 1.7 ) to the International Standards Organization (ISO) via AIIM. PDF has reached a point in its maturity cycle where maintaining it in an open standards manner is the next logical step in evolution. Not only does this reinforce Adobe's commitment to open standards (see also my earlier blog on the release of flash runtime code to the Tamarin open source project at Sourceforge), but it demonstrates that open standards and open source strategies are really becoming a mainstream concept in the software industry.
So what does this really mean? Most people know that PDF is already a standard so why do this now? This event is very subtle yet very significant. PDF will go from being an open standard/specification and de facto standard to a full blown de jure standard. The difference will not affect implementers much given PDF has been a published open standard for years. There are some important distinctions however. First — others will have a clearly documented process for contributing to the future of the PDF specification. That process also clearly documents the path for others to contribute their own Intellectual property for consideration in future versions of the standard. Perhaps Adobe could have set up some open standards process within the company but this would be merely duplicating the open standards process, which we felt was the proper home for PDF. Second, it helps cement the full PDF specification as the umbrella specification for all the other PDF standards under the ISO umbrella such as PDF/A, PDF/X and PDF/E. The move also helps realize the dreams of a fully open web as the web evolves (what some are calling Web 2.0), built upon truly open standards, technologies and protocols."
That MS XML format had some worth after all :DDD
There are 2 types of OS: the "normal" one and the discriminatory one. So anybody but Microsoft can use this "Clos...Open Source" project?
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Is this a nail in the MS XML coffin?
I wonder if Bill would decide it is a good idea. Obviously people have been producing pdf's via Latex and wysiwyg tools for years, but the inclusion of the pdf format in office 2007 could have some pretty big impact in business environments. Doen't really matter to me, i'm off to play with my new mac :D
gokugone.com "Bah-weep-grah-nah-weep-ninny
I tip my hat to them.
I don't know that this move has more meaning today than if it was done two years ago, but I certainly see more motivation today. The purpose of the ODF is to ensure that 100 years from now we can still access data. Closed formats mean data may not be accessible in the future. PDF used to be the sole means to have a document look exactly the same across any platform. That is no longer the case, and even Microsoft has opened the standard (mostly) on their new Office data files.
While I still applaud the effort, Adobe is late to the party.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Translation for mere mortals: Adobe is feeling the breath of Microsoft and its Metro. They are so scared to become the next Netscape they are trying to nil any reason people may have to use Microsoft's XPS.
B.
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http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/fileforma t/faq/#item-1-8:
Adobe needs to focus more on the users' requirements, and less on pigeonholing them into vague outlines of their vision.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/
Please forgive my ignorance on the matter. I do recall reading the article earlier on how Adobe has released the code on the scripting portion of Flash to Mozilla, and how it created the Tamarin project.
Is the scripting portion alone enough for Mozilla to have their own embedded fully-functional Flash player?
Can we compile from source a 64-bit Flash player some day through this project?
The Tamarin Project mentions Firefox 2, and as far as I can tell from reading the Firefox 2 features, it never made a new impact in the 2 release. Will this impact Firefox 3? When will it be implemented, and what exactly does it mean?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
PDF was never a standard in the sense of the word that one was encouraged to use it. Only open standards meet that requirement.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
pdftohtml
or
pdftk
The last one is more to let you edit a pdf, but they are all really useful when dealing with pdf file.
"International Standards Organization (ISO)"
Intertional Organization for Standardization
1) I think you mean "du jour"
2) <IndigoMantoya>I don't think "du jour" means what you think it means.</IndigoMantoya>
"du jour" simply means "of the day" ("soup du jour" => "soup of the day"). I really don't think you intended to claim that becoming the standard of the day is a good thing. I think saying, "PDF will transition from a de facto standard to an official one" would have been clearer, more succinct, and still gotten your intended point across.
Nathan
So is that a standard du jour, or a de jure standard?
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
It is wonderful to hear that the PDF specification will be the subject of open standardization. Caution should be exercised when implementing products though. Almost 400 patents have been granted to Adobe. Adobe has another 50 patent applications in process. There may also be additional patents that have been assigned to Adobe or that Adobe has an exclusive license to practice. Adobe may also have intellectual property in foreign markets that are greater in scope than what Adobe has in the United States.
Caution should be exercised because ISO does not require that its standards be patent-free. Necessary patents merely must be available on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. Adobe (or anyone else really) may also seek patents on how PDFs are used, manipulated, etc.
This doesn't necessarily mean that Adobe is bad or that any Open Source Software projects will ever face any obstacles from Adobe. It simply means that some care should be taken to determine whether any of Adobe's patents cover features of the PDF standard or its uses, especially when developing software that mimics an existing proprietary product. If there is a question, then OSS developers should contact Adobe to try to get a license (perhaps for the consideration of a promise that the resulting product remain open source).
Adobe have deservedly copped criticism over the years, but one great thing they've shown by example is that if you *do* let go out of specs (as they did with PDF), you can still be a viable business. More than viable. Adobe is still the #1 name in PDF/PS, but they do so alongside competitors (GhostScript/View and the zillion PDF generation tools). Yet Adobe is still making money.
0 000000057.html Beyond [PageUp/PageDown], Adobe Reader's interface is very badly designed. The preferences make me weep and why can't I bookmark a la Visual Studio? And please stop trying to stuff every scripting concept known to humanity into the PDF spec, because all you're doing is turning PDF into the ultimate Trojan vector! Had to get that off my chest...)
;-)
Compare that to Sun with Java. Sun just wouldn't let go, so it never got beyond being just another product that competitors had to *take down!* One of those was Microsoft, but they themselves made the same mistake with Microsoft Word. Remember how DOC files used to be the "standard" (cough) for distributing documents on the web? Now it's all either PDF or HTML. If MS had let go, maybe, people would have used that?** In the long run, when we're talking about data which *needs* to be interchangable and not tied to one software vendor, an open spec will win. Especially a better one! (PDFs look the same. Word DOCs don't!)
(Reading this and feeling good Adobe? *great*. Now please head on over to Joel and learn about user interface design http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog
Anyway, PDF and PS still rock and I'm glad they won!
** = Yes, Microsoft did make a feint with their Office XML, but everyone recognizes it for the debacle it is. Sorry Dad!
If Adobe throws in the towel and uses any other open document format, then they have to write off a lot of their marketable PDF technical skillset. Instead, playing the open-source benefactor is the next logical step.
This therefore does not necessarily "reinforce Adobe's commitment to open standards", it merely illustrates that it is no longer cost effective for Adobe to continue to maintain the PDF format in house.
Also, open-sourcing a mature proprietary format such as PDF (which has been driven by a single company's objectives) may divert attention from other open standards that have been developed from scratch by consensus, so it's not without it's potential downside.
boakes.org
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Look Adobe for the longest time has fought making this open. Like many companies, they when a real competitor to their control comes along, then and only then will they open up. Java is a good example.
The one thing that I will give Adobe credit for is that they are at least doing it early enough so that it can make a real difference. As it is (was), most companies wait until they have no choice before doing so. Java is a good example of that. I think that had Java gone true OSS at least 6-7 years ago, sun would be in major control and Java would be unstoppable. As it is, Java is decaying as a number of the projects move to C#/mono (I am a C/C++/perl type guy).
Who knows, since more companies are jumping on the OSS AND still making money on the items, this is force others to move to true OSS. I have noticed that when I have been interviewing amongst big companies (first time a quite a while), that many now want to see my source code and they are moving a number of their projects to OSS code.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This has very little to do with adobe's pdf reader (which is one of the worst). Why not use kpdf, that uses qt and works considerably better. PDF being an open standard means that there are plenty of programs which support it.
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> 1) I think you mean "du jour"
They really dont
> "du jour" simply means "of the day" ("soup du jour" => "soup of the day").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_jure
Firstly it is Latin not French and it means "by law" not "of the day"
check your facts you condescending schmuck, or read a book once in a while
hand your geek card in at the desk and dont let the door hit you on the way out
So I know lots of apps can print to pdf. But the only app I've seen that can open up an existing pdf and change it is Adobe's writer.
Anyone know if other apps will be able to do this now? Or if some already do? I've heard of pdftk, but it doesn't seem to actually edit the content itself.
I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).
It's not that people don't think of PDF as a standard - it's that it's insanely expensive to have as a "feature".
I mean seriously, think about it - you can buy a "normal" version of Office for the price of being able to export your documents to a PDF. Arguably the utility of Office applications is significantly higher than the ability to ship PDF's around.
It is also very clear from Adobe's pricing that they have you by the balls. Distiller isn't worth that much.
Not only do the creators of PDF's get screwed, the reader software (up until the latest version) has sucked hard. It had a tendency to stay open and use copious amounts of RAM even whenthere were no PDF docs being viewed. Performance wasn't really what they were after either and the ads in Reader were pretty awful too.
There is no reason that it needs to cost so much to create non-editable documents.
While many here already know that PDF has been an open format for a number of years, that knowledge may not be held by all in the development business. Becoming an ISO standard will be very good PR for Adobe and PDF and will go a long time towards reaching developers who didn't know it was an open standard before. If will also be good for those who have PHBs that insist that everything have the right set of acronyms associated with it!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Is this the next logical step?
"PDF has reached a point in it's maturity cycle"
It's == It is. Its == possessive.
"a full blown du jure standard"
Either [soup] "du jour" or [practices] "de jure"?
Can't tell who's responsible for this, the linked page is Slashdotted.
I appreciate what you've done with your source libraries and tamarin, I'm also grateful for the existence of PDF. I don't see why we need javascript or 3D in PDF documents and I hope you're not thinking of putting flash in there as well. If we wanted documents to be code we'd all be using postscript wouldn't we?
>PDF has reached a point in it's maturity cycle...
It's its, not it's.
Does it include the features for protecting a PDF from being altered/read without the right password or whatever it is (the ones that Russian guy was arrested for).
What about the features that deal with applying black bars over text (can we build a PDF reader that completely ignores such data and see all the text that whoever did the obscuring thought was no longer readable?)
What's wrong with CutePDF?
Yes, a 100 MB application to read text seems a bit much. I use Foxit Reader. Just 2 MB, very fast.
Is there any app that can 'uncompile' a pdf and fit it on a screen width?
;-)
No, technical discussions of the format aside.
As an end user, it would help if you consider the format a FINAL format (for viewing, printing, distribution, etc.), and treat the authoring of it as entirely separate. It's really quite obvious, but the modern widespread use of wordprocessing software (which typically combines the two separate steps in an unholy but manageable mess) has led to the confusion. Put another way, your question comes up frequently.
By contrast, those accustomed to separating the two steps (editing text and adding markup, on the one hand, and generating output as postscript, PDF, HTML, formatted text such as man pages, etc., on other), never ask the question and typically scratch their heads when they see it asked. PDFs are typically generated into letter and A4 sizes. Reading them on screen isn't ideal, agreed, but it's unlikely there will ever be a big push for everyone to provide 6x9 or smaller versions. Perhaps one day in the future when screen technology improves and becomes widespread, but not now.
You consolation prize is that you can, with little trouble, extract the text from a PDF. You can use that to re-author a new PDF, or read it as is. But that brings you back full circle to "plain text", doesn't it? The tangential lesson here is there is a reason why *nix users continue to insist on using the command line, and spend much of their time mucking about with text files, and the rest of it arguing about text editors. Text (ascii, if you will), is the lowest common denominator for people and computers. The two get along quite nicely. You could say that processing text is what it's all about. Oddly, enough, computer programs are written in text, and their output is often more text.
There is a book called Unix Text Processing (written by Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly) that was first published in 1987. To a large degree, it's as relevant and useful today as it was back then, years before Microsoft released Windows 95 to the world. If you buy a copy on amazon.com (for under $2.00, typically), you can learn how to make your own PDFs and never have to ask the question again.
This is great news!
;-)
Now I won't have to start endless discussions with people not liking PDF because it is 'proprietary', an argument that IMHO made no sense because Adobe has always allowed developers to use the PDF Reference as described in section 1.4 of the PDF Reference.
The only downside: I have just published a book about PDF saying PDF is a de facto standard as opposed to the ISO standards PDF/X and PDF/A (read the third chapter that is available for free). If I had known this was coming, I could have asked to wait for a month and a half before printing it
> Text (ascii, if you will), is the lowest
> common denominator for people and computers.
So true. Although I'd even add the HTML Unicode escapes to that definition of text. I'm working on a JavaCC book right now and writing it in DocBook, and you can easily do Unicode characters with the hex encoding. For example, ü (or U+00FC) is ü. DocBook handles this just fine, the PDF output looks good, and so the book can use accented characters and such when appropriate.
The Army reading list
...the Open Source invented the standardization process. At least that what is seems to me when I read "but it demonstrates that open standards and open source strategies are really becoming a mainstream concept in the software industry" at an Open-Source-directed site like Slashdot.
Sorry to break your heart, folks, but that's like saying Open Source invented ISO / ANSI / IEEE / etc. A.k.a.: nonsense. The process of open industry standards predates the open source community.
I know that the Open Source community is important and all, but pretending that it invented the whole process of openness is plain silly. Stop this nonsense.
I don't understand comments like this... Adobe's reader does suck, badly, but it's only a reference implementation adobe make available to demonstrate the format. If you want a better PDF reader, there are loads out there and your free to write your own if none of them suit you.
The default preview app in OSX works well, and i often use kpdf under Linux, but there are many PDF readers for pretty much every platform in existance, there's even a PDF reader for AmigaOS, and no adobe don't make an official one for Amiga.
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There can be no doubt or argument that there should be only one open standard. Open meaning not owned by any entity or for-profit company. Ideally the standard should be specified and updated on behalf of all the consumers or all the people by the government or an institute chartered by it. The Standard specifying body should be completely neutral and agnostic. It should allow all players, big and small, for profit and non-profit, commercial and non commercial a level playing field. Such is the case with your nuts and bolts (SAE and DIN spec) or your engine oil or light bulbs or extension cords or ASCII encoding (not EBCDIE if any remembers that) and ANSI language specs.
Open Source, one can debate, one can agree to various extent the usefulness or the lack of it. Pros and cons you can disagree with me. As long as neither you nor I control the standards, it is a level playing field and the market and history will prove either you or me as correct. Same with free software.
Currently there are three standards being specified. Which itself is bad. OpenDoc, a microsoft thingie called OpenXML and now the OpenPDF. I like OpenXML least because it pretends to be a standard but it cant be implemented by all players without help/license from Microsoft. It has the audaucity to enshrine bugs of Office97 and Word6 and WordPerfect5 as standards . OpenDoc is already well on its way in the standards process. PDF has a much wider user installed base and has a financial muscle of a decent profit making company and its self interest. I wish PDF and OpenDoc will merge and come up with a unified standard.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Sean Connery gasps: "But in the Latin alphabet, 'de jure' is written with an 'I'!"
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Fox-It is a wonderful PDF reader... slim on resources, and loads very fast!
While this works the output can look a little like OCR sometimes. In some places pdftotxt has to reconstruct the text from glyphs (or strokepaths I can't remember which) and the conversion isn't perfect. Ligatures are a bitch as well.
A similar way to go is pdftops followed by some pstops magic to cut out obxs (like text columns) and then reformat them onto a new page. To the OP I wuold say:
man pdftops
man pstops
As these tools are magic, and you will love them.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
AdobeGrl2002: then like u put a 64-byte header blok
ISO_19_TX: thats hot
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
TFA doesn't seem to be reachable. Here is the original Adobe press release.
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
...when can I finally get a free pdf creator/editor? I can view PDFs. I can make PDFs from other files. But I cannot edit PDFs (without the help of a pirated copy of Acrobat)? Why not?
Have you actually looked at a PDF file in a text editor? It's a meaningless pile of spaghetti.
Microsoft's XML Paper Specification (XPS) is already available for anyone to implement. And it's plain, readable XML instead of a 25-year-old printer description language. Your applicaiton can build files using any XML parsing engine, instead of having to license a PDF library.
how appropriate... the word buttplug coming from an asshole
"a full blown de jure standard" What the hell does "de jure" mean?
Good move Adobe ! Now, I don't want to be too solicitous, but I hope you'll do the same thing with Flashpaper.
Cry me a river... If you want to use PDF then use OpenOffice, it a free download. ODF and PDF are international standards, it serves you right for using a proprietary product with proprietary formats.
FYI, an Adobe employee responded to some questions about this and especially how it relates to Microsoft's new XPS format here. (Nickull's reply should be at the top of that page)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Fox-It saved my baby. The house was burning, everyone else said it was too late, but Fox-It was not deterred. Slim and fast, Fox-it dashed into the house and produced my baby, sooty and coughing, but alive. That you Fox-It pro, without you all of our children would die.
Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.
OpenDocument is already a ISO standard, ISO 26300. The status is 60.60, which means "International Standard published".
a logueDetail?CSNUMBER=43485&scopelist=PROGRAMME
"ISO/IEC 26300:2006 defines an XML schema for office applications and its semantics. The schema is suitable for office documents, including text documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings or presentations, but is not restricted to these kinds of documents.
ISO/IEC 26300:2006 provides for high-level information suitable for editing documents. It defines suitable XML structures for office documents and is friendly to transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based tools."
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.Cat
Why do they need to use AOL Instant Messenger to release it? Couldn't they just set up a Torrent of the spec?
Sent from my iPhone
Whenever someone tries to implement a doc-to-pdf functionality, they get threatened to have their pants sued off... Adobe doesn't do "open".
I think you are confusing Foxit with Firefox. It was Firefox that rescued me and my fiancee from the burning fires of Hell (aka IE).
Yeah, but Firefox is a little pudgy and not so fast... while it may have saved your baby from a fire... it probably won't do it nearly as fast as Fox-It
The name of the organization is: ISO - International Organization for Standardization. I have no idea why it's "ISO" when clearly it should be "IOS".
PGA
Is Adobe open sourcing the standard PDF fonts (Helvetica, Times, etc.)? Font embedding is possible in PDF, but produces larger files and is a PAIN to code.
A year or so ago I saw a dead trees edition in a bookstore. If it had been printed on thinner paper I might have purchased instead of downloaded it. I have an old Intel manual from 20 years ago kicking around and its around 458 pages and only 14mm (a little less than 9/16") thick and still in good shape despite having gotten a lot of use.
I realize that the "Fat Book Syndrome" was a marketing ploy to impress PHBs despite the inconvenience of the extra bulk and additional strain on the environment. Now that there is meaningful competition amongst purveyors of standards along the dimension of perceived complexity, wouldn't the "Thin book advantage" be a boon to those wishing to show that their standard is more easily digestible?
Thanks, an actual informative post!
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
LOL GAY!
Windows Vista includes a PDF-alike which will put our product out of business the same way that happened to Netscape and many others.
Two reasons:
1) PDF can embed fonts
2) PDF can embed vector graphics natively.
This is a big deal to me. I am a university student studying math. Aside from the obvious reasons that Microsoft doesn't have any compelling (math) typesetting products, there is simply no way that I could create a paper in Word and be able to send it to you and reasonably expect you to be able to read it. You simply don't have the correct fonts/symbols installed on your computer. And if I have some figures or diagrams in the document, I don't want them in some crappy raster image format. I want them in a vector format. Sure, there's no reason that Microsoft couldn't create a vector image format (or adopt something like SVG), but since Postscript (and by association, PDF) has had this capability for twenty years already there simply isn't any reason to.
Again, there's no reason that Microsoft can't create a competing file format that incorporates vector drawing and embedded fonts. But PDF is good, it is a standard, it is well known, etc. It has very important features that are lacking in the Office file formats (and the reverse is true, but that's not the point), and it simply doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try to incorporate these features in to Office.
#include ".signature"
I don't think XPS will ever be able to take over PDF. Surely Word and Excel became so widely popular over WordPerfect or others, because of the general widespread presence of Windows. However those alternatives were anywhere near the popularity that PDF has today. Any OS but windows handles PDF natively. XPS will need some sort of programs for non-windows OSes including Macs (most likely) and Linux (unlikely). I have the feeling MS will push XPS as their standard, and using the monopoly they will try to kill PDF. However PDF will be there for a long time for the simple reason of its current presence. It's the same as saying: MS proposes a new format for HTML, non compatible. Will it change the web? No, I don't think so.
ISO is not "International Standards Organization", it's "International Organization for Standardization". ISO comes from the Greek isos, meaning "equal".
== = Comparison
= = Assignment
Does this mean we'll see free tools to do things like create PDFs which unlock the hidden ability of Acrobat Reader to save filled-in form data?
e r_Extensionsi ons/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_LiveCycle_Read
http://www.adobe.com/products/server/readerextens
I thought that it was being sent to the ISO via AIM and immediately pictured them replying, "wtfbbq?! rofl! n00bs!"
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Download and try out Acrobat Reader 8.0... they *completely* changed the interface. It looks pretty slick to me, although I haven't used it much because it's not available for Linux yet...
I just want to know how and when I can place a bookmark before I finish reading and re-open at the same page when I came back from reality.
This has the potential to be a very positive development for OSS. For decades, it's already been possible to read and write pdf using OSS. However, there has been a tendency for many commercial printing businesses to demand pdfs written by Adobe distiller. Others place arbitrary, undocumented limitations on what pdf files they'll accept. For instance, some apple apps write pdf files that have a lot of layers in them, and are computationally expensive to print, so printers will just bounce them back. Generally what seems to happen is that the only way to be 100% safe is to use distiller. If the customer uses distiller, then he figures, "Hey, distiller wrote it, so you damn well better be able to print it." The printer responds to that by setting their criteria so that distiller-written docs tend to be ok. Also, adobe is always a few steps ahead of everybody else in the sophistication of their pdf implementation, so distiller-generated pdfs may be less buggy, or better optimized so they aren't computationally expensive to render. Inside the docutech or whatever, the printer is probably running some version of adobe reader, so it's also likely that adobe-generated pdf will be the most compatible with adobe's own reader.
For these reasons, standardization could be a boon to people writing pdfs with OSS. People can now say, "Hey, it follows the standard, so you damn well better be able to print it." I'm not familiar with the different flavors of pdf referred to in the /. summary, but it may be that adobe is making an effort to define standard subsets of the language for various purposes. If that's what's actually happening, it could be a good thing, because instead of setting their own undocumented criteria, printers could start saying "We accept subset $foo of pdf."
AFAIK, the biggest remaining fly in the ointment is color management. If you want to do high-end color management, you basically don't have any options with OSS, because of patents.
Find free books.
PDF is fine for what is was designed for: creating print documents. But I hate pdf when reading it on the screen as it won't fit my window width: either you have to scroll back and forth every line or the characters are too small to read. Is there any app that can 'uncompile' a pdf and fit it on a screen width ? Might be a great app for reading docs on a laptop/pda/cell phone.
In Adobe Reader you can select 'Reflow' from the View menu. For best results the PDF needs to contain document structuring tags. The PDF specification supports reflowing text however not all PDF generators embed the necessary tags to allow the viewer to correctly reflow the text.
Foxit is fast, but lacks some features. Apart from the fact that its interface is a copycat, it does not support non-Latin1 characters well. Although I was able to display a Chinese PDF file, I could not successfully copy the text correctly. With Adobe Reader it was OK.