Best PDF Reader for Windows 7?

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Jon55

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Is there a good PDF reader for Windows 7? One that has browser integration, is free, lightweight, non-bloated, and simple. The Adobe Reader is a huge joke (literally, it's very bloated). I've heard Foxit Reader has become pretty bloated as well recently. Again, web browser support is important.


Why Windows 7 STILL doesn't have built-in PDF read (and some light write) support is beyond me, but this is what we have to deal with.
 
I've gone back to Adobe's Reader. Technically, Reader Lite.
 
I still use Foxit, because... it really does have less 'bloat'.
I haven't heard of the new Adobe reader, so I'll try it out and see.
 
Foxit.

Starts faster than adobe, seems to work fine with pretty much any normal PDFs I have come across, integrates nicely with all my browsers.

Sumatra is another decent one. Though not as good as Foxit IMO.
 
Jon55 said:
Why Windows 7 STILL doesn't have built-in PDF read (and some light write) support is beyond me, but this is what we have to deal with.
Click to expand...

Because MS does not want to piss off adobe and if you do any sort of advanced PDF documents the Adobe Reader is really the only option?
 
Sumatra is open source, though, if you are into that.

Grentz said:
Because MS does not want to piss off adobe and if you do any sort of advanced PDF documents the Adobe Reader is really the only option?
Click to expand...

and PDF is a close source format from Adobe, Office has a built in convertor, but MS has been pushing XPS, as of late.
 
Grentz said:
Because MS does not want to piss off adobe and if you do any sort of advanced PDF documents the Adobe Reader is really the only option?
Click to expand...

OS X's Preview app has had PDF readability for a long time. I just wish Windows would have it by default too.

phide said:
I've gone back to Adobe's Reader. Technically, Reader Lite.
Click to expand...

I wasn't aware there was a new Reader (lite). Does it still install a bunch of other software along with it like regular Reader did?
 
Foxit vote from me. Latest Adobe Reader still hangs on a few websites, even when there isn't an obvious reason for the plugin to try and access anything there.
 
You heard wrong.. Foxit is far from bloated.
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I hate foxit. I actually do. I used it for a while after thinking Adobe was bad. Foxit was so bad I've actually switched back to Adobe. It sucks. It takes ages to do anything, every time it opens a pdf it freezes my whole computer for a minute and a half, scrolling is laggy, and it doesn't even close properly half the time.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
I hate foxit. I actually do. I used it for a while after thinking Adobe was bad. Foxit was so bad I've actually switched back to Adobe. It sucks. It takes ages to do anything, every time it opens a pdf it freezes my whole computer for a minute and a half, scrolling is laggy, and it doesn't even close properly half the time.
Click to expand...

Seems that in your world, up is down, black is white!
 
Jon55 said:
I wasn't aware there was a new Reader (lite). Does it still install a bunch of other software along with it like regular Reader did?
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No. It's not technically an Adobe release, it's just a somewhat older version of Reader that's been stripped of non-essentials, mainly the updater.
 
I still prefer Foxit....quicker, especially when opening PDFs through a browser.
I think I have Sumatra on one laptop, I remember now and then it had some issues with a few PDFs not showing correctly.

Tried Adobe Reader Lite on one PC...working OK, still not as fast as Foxit for me when it comes to reading PDFs through a browser.

Yeah Foxit now tries to sneak in some "me too" software....eBay bar and Ask Jeeves bar or something..like most other free software these days. Just yank the checkbox during install.
 
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I use Foxit on my Netbook. On my desktop I have Acrobat Pro and it seems very quick. (Much faster than the standalone Adobe Reader, but not as fast as Foxit)
 
Seems that in your world, up is down, black is white!
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*sigh...*

And I really wanted it to work well. It just didn't work properly. All my course's lecture notes, announcements, and past exam papers are in pdf format, so it's kind of important that I have a fast application to read these files. And I hate to say it, but Foxit isn't that fast application. Maybe I'll give Sumatra a go...
 
Jon55 said:
Is there a good PDF reader for Windows 7? One that has browser integration, is free, lightweight, non-bloated, and simple. The Adobe Reader is a huge joke (literally, it's very bloated). I've heard Foxit Reader has become pretty bloated as well recently. Again, web browser support is important.
Click to expand...
Adobe Reader 9.2 Lite. Just go into Preferences and under Internet, uncheck display in web browser. All PDF's that are in web pages will open in it. Reader Lite does not have browser add-ons. Reader Lite has the full compatibility of Adobe Reader with none of the bloat/add-ons/updater/quickstarters

/thread.
Why Windows 7 STILL doesn't have built-in PDF read (and some light write) support is beyond me, but this is what we have to deal with.
Click to expand...
Microsoft wants you to use XPS.
Dion said:
You heard wrong.. Foxit is far from bloated.
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He means full of annoying adware/buyware.

Grentz said:
Sumatra is another decent one. Though not as good as Foxit IMO.
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Sumatra is very lite and has no adware in it, unlike Foxit. Unfortunately, Sumatra has some display issues. Not all PDF's will display properly in it, but I've only experienced this once.
Grentz said:
Because MS does not want to piss off adobe and if you do any sort of advanced PDF documents the Adobe Reader is really the only option?
Click to expand...
If Microsoft doesn't want to 'piss off' Adobe, then why is 'save as PDF' included in Office 2007 SP2 as a free add on?
 
foxit :) works great, loads fast and not a hog... no reason not to use it (yet)
 
I still prefer Acrobat Reader, latest 9.x version work very good for me.
 
jointhedarkside said:
PDF-xchange.
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This is a very good one. Much lighter than Adobe, and renders PDFs extremely well. The toolbars aren't as clean looking as Foxit but it's a great alternative. I tried Sumatra and wasn't impressed. It's light, sure, but far from perfect.
 
Foxit hasn't come close to being non-boated since somewhere in 2006 when I stopped using it. I'm now using SumatraPDF, which has worked fine for me.
 
imyourzero said:
This is a very good one. Much lighter than Adobe, and renders PDFs extremely well. The toolbars aren't as clean looking as Foxit but it's a great alternative. I tried Sumatra and wasn't impressed. It's light, sure, but far from perfect.
Click to expand...

Does it have web browser integration?


bigdogchris said:
Microsoft wants you to use XPS.
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Thank you. That makes more sense than "they don't want to piss off Adobe". I mean Apple has had PDF support in OS X for years, and I always wondered why Windows didn't. I didn't think of XPS, and it all makes sense now. Which is a shame, because I can't imagine some light PDF support would be hard to implement.
 
bigdogchris said:
If Microsoft doesn't want to 'piss off' Adobe, then why is 'save as PDF' included in Office 2007 SP2 as a free add on?
Click to expand...

Why would that 'piss off' Adobe? They love the fact that they've weaseled their way into making their shitty closed format document standard into a virtual necessity for users over the years. Microsoft including support for the PDF format just reinforces its dominance.
 
Personally, I keep the real Acrobat reader installed and use it because I don't want to have to worry about rendering of some special case PDF by one of the third-party PDF viewers.

For most of my day-to-day work, I've actually switched to using Microsoft's XPS for everything. I copy-paste a lot from documents and XPS handles copy-paste more eleganty (IMHO) than PDF (no matter which renderer) does.
 
In non-critical systems, I install Foxit.

Working with graphic design and print though, I use Acrobat Pro (and our company has Adobe Reader installed on the other workstations that aren't running CS4). For some reason, Foxit doesn't display or print a lot of our files properly; not sure if it's a font issue or what.
 
I'm not sure how people are saying non-adobe products render PDF better than the people who make it ...
 
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