

The other program I want to highlight is called PDF-XChange Viewer. Together the with non-existing load times this makes handling PDF’s a joy! (You can even press Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to open the next pdf in the folder to mimic the PgUp/PgDown in most image viewers!) PDF-XChange Viewer This makes it work more along the lines of a typical image viewer, allowing you to close the program with the escape key. To make Sumatra PDF even better, here’s a tip: start the program once with the command line “ Sumatra.exe -esc-to-exit“. But for the 99% of the time you don’t need such features, SumatraPDF is a real gem! It is also actively developed adding new features all the time. Compatibility is excellent, although some advanced features such as filling out forms and annotations are missing. In addition to PDF, Sumatra is able to read many other document formats: eBook (ePub, Mobi), XPS, DjVu, CHM, Comic Book (CBZ and CBR), which makes it the most versatile document viewer that I know of.

This open source application is super fast and very easy to use, with excellent hotkey support and nice usability features such as opening documents at the same position from where you previously left. Sumatra PDF is without a doubt my favorite PDF reader, and it has changed the way I view and manage PDF’s. In this post I’ll talk about two PDF readers I really like, and explain why I prefer them to other readers. There are many PDF readers to choose from. If you agree on this, then you definately should look for an alternative PDF viewer! It is slow to start, feels bloated and unresponsive, has little support for editing, clogging your system with background processes and constantly requires attention for updates that fix security issues. Many consider Adobe Reader a pain to work with. But did you know that PDF is an open file format, allowing anyone to create applications that read and write PDF files?

Adobe created the file format and their Reader software enjoys a near-monopoly on reading PDF documents. PDF has become the de facto standard for publishing electronic documents.
