Portable Document Format (PDF) is one of the most widely used formats for distributing documents. It preserves text, fonts, graphics and page layouts across different operating systems, making it particularly useful for technical manuals, academic papers, reports, forms and publications.
A good PDF viewer needs to do more than display pages accurately. Depending on the application, useful capabilities include full-text search, bookmarks, annotations, form filling, digital signature verification, continuous scrolling and efficient navigation through lengthy documents. Performance, memory consumption and accessibility are also important considerations.
Linux users have a particularly broad selection of PDF viewers. Some are comprehensive desktop applications with sophisticated annotation and document management features. Others concentrate on fast rendering, keyboard-driven navigation or working within a terminal. Several also support ebooks, comic books and other document formats.
The choice largely depends on how you work with documents. Researchers may favour sophisticated navigation and synchronisation features, while everyday users might prefer a straightforward interface. Lightweight viewers can be attractive on older hardware, and terminal-oriented applications provide alternatives for users who spend much of their time at the command line.
Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.
Let’s explore the 28 PDF viewers. For each application we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, an image of the software in action, together with links to relevant resources.
| PDF Viewers | |
|---|---|
| KOReader | Document viewer for a wide variety of file formats including PDF |
| Okular | Universal document viewer supporting advanced document features |
| MuPDF | Lightweight PDF and XPS viewer |
| Sioyek | Designed for viewing research papers and technical books |
| PDF.js | JavaScript library that renders Portable Document Format files |
| Koodo Reader | All-in-one ebook reader and PDF viewer |
| Papers | Fork of Evince |
| Evince | Multi-page document viewer |
| Atril | A simple multi-page document viewer for MATE |
| tdf | TUI-based PDF viewer |
| Zathura | Highly customizable and functional document viewer |
| Xreader | Simple multi-page document viewer |
| qpdfview | Tabbed document viewer. It uses Poppler for PDF support |
| Xpdf | PDF viewer and toolkit |
| PreviewQt | Preview all kinds of files |
| llpp | Fast and featureful PDF, EPUB, XPS and CBZ viewer |
| JFBView | PDF and image viewer for the Linux framebuffer |
| hygg | Minimalistic Vim-like TUI document reader |
| fancy-cat | PDF reader for terminal emulators |
| apvlv | PDF/EPUB/TXT/FB2/MOBI/CBZ/HTML …viewer |
| CorePDF | Simple lightweight PDF viewer |
| Jumpdf | Keyboard-focused PDF viewer |
| Shelf | Browse and view documents |
| MeowPDF | PDF viewer for the Kitty terminal with Vim-style navigation |
| npdfr | Command-line PDF reader prioritizing fast searches |
| miro | Native PDF viewer |
| Kiview | Quick file preview |
| Lektra | Fast and configurable PDF viewer |
This article has been updated to reflect the changes outlined in our recent announcement.
 LinuxLinks helps you discover the best free and open source software for Linux. Explore our extensive collection of recommended applications, including alternatives to popular proprietary software.We also publish software reviews, Linux tutorials, hardware reviews, free programming books and articles covering the wider open source community. Browse our Linux resources to discover more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application we haven't covered? Suggest a program for inclusion. Has your software been featured on LinuxLinks? Display one of our Featured on LinuxLinks badges on your website or GitHub README. |
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Do any free/open-source PDF tools support adobe XFA forms?
Last time I tried okular didn’t support Adobe XFA forms. But I believe Foxit Reader has partial support.
The options are: Firefox / PDF.js, Chromium’s PDF viewer / PDFium, PDFium itself.
Guess what, MuPdf is much better than Evice and Okular.
It would be good to test these for form filling as that is a common requirement these days. I found the tool tips for the fields did not appear in most of the readers I tried and in some it was not possible to choose an option (radio) button.