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My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

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Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#31

Post by blattimwind »

anoncake wrote: post #30
burtonator wrote: post #7

Okular is actually the reason I created Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ Well, one of the reasons. First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows [1] Additionally, there were pretty severe bugs when I used it and there were 1-2 long outstanding bugs regarding annotations that weren't fixed…

You found that you had to download too much bloat to use Okular so you made an Electron app? Im pretty sure you dont have to download all of KDE to use one of its apps, just the package manager and the libraries Okular uses.

I can't confirm if this is still the case, but a couple years ago you had a web installer for KDE on Windows and I could just deselect everything except Okular and a couple other stuff I wanted and that came out to a couple hundred MB disk space overall.

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#32

Post by blattimwind »

johnchristopher wrote: post #23

Okular is the only PDF reader that could handle PDF on my previous slow computer. Windows was a breeze but I always had problems with PDF on linux before I could settle for okular. It bugs me that it's easier to select text with the underlining tool than with the select tool.

PDFs are kinda weird because there are somehow always PDFs that slow one viewer down but usually another viewer is fine. E.g. I have PDFs where Okular takes a couple seconds to render the first page, while LLPP renders it much faster. And vice versa -- which is the confusing part.

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#33

Post by northernjames »

For PDF annotating/collaboration, Xodo for the web deserves to be better known: https://www.xodo.com/app/#/

It displays/creates standard PDF annotations. You can collaborate with people online if you want, or annotate files on your computer without uploading them to a server (it uses emscripten/wasm/pnacl client side).

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#34

Post by jcelerier »

tonydiep wrote: post #2

I just evaluated Evince, Okular, Foxit, and Acrobat for annotating PDFs. My particular use case is to annotate emails, spreadsheet, etc., and merge them as exhibits into a legal brief. After annotation, the other programs can export the original or it export the annotation layers but it could not give you a PDF with both the original and the annotations merged into one layer. This was a deal breaker. With Okular you…

> Okular deserves to be better known.

s/Okular/most KDE software/

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#35

Post by michaelmrose »

burtonator wrote: post #7

Okular is actually the reason I created Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ Well, one of the reasons. First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows [1] Additionally, there were pretty severe bugs when I used it and there were 1-2 long outstanding bugs regarding annotations that weren't fixed…

What can you possibly object to about how it runs on linux? Its wholly reasonable that kde apps all build on the same foundation rather than each one bundle their own version of libraries.

If the entire rest of your desktop happens to be based on gnome for example you end up with *doctor evil expression" HUNDREDS OF MB of extra libraries once the first time you install a kde app. Perish the thought.

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#36

Post by js2 »

crazygringo wrote: post #4
tonydiep wrote: post #2

I just evaluated Evince, Okular, Foxit, and Acrobat for annotating PDFs. My particular use case is to annotate emails, spreadsheet, etc., and merge them as exhibits into a legal brief. After annotation, the other programs can export the original or it export the annotation layers but it could not give you a PDF with both the original and the annotations merged into one layer. This was a deal breaker. With Okular you…

In theory, shouldn't every PDF viewer support printing... and both macOS and Windows 10 support printing to PDF... which flattens the layers? Just tried it with macOS Preview and totally flattens it, the annotations pane lists nothing, I can't select/move annotations... they're permanent. However, also just tried with Acrobat Reader on macOS, and infuriatingly after selecting the system's "Print to PDF" Acrobat pops…

Try CUPS-PDF. I don't know if it still works but I've used it in the past to save PDFs from programs that stubbornly refused to allow it.

https://www.cups-pdf.de/

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#37

Post by muxator »

blattimwind wrote: post #31
anoncake wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You found that you had to download too much bloat to use Okular so you made an Electron app? Im pretty sure you dont have to download all of KDE to use one of its apps, just the package manager and the libraries Okular uses.

I can't confirm if this is still the case, but a couple years ago you had a web installer for KDE on Windows and I could just deselect everything except Okular and a couple other stuff I wanted and that came out to a couple hundred MB disk space overall.

That was the windows installer for KDE 4, yes. I used to install it on every windows PC I had to use.

From a quick check now it is possible to install individual applications (Okular is not there):

https://community.kde.org/Windows

But it's not the same thing. At the times one was able to install the while kde4. That's a cross platform app!

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#38

Post by burtonator »

michaelmrose wrote: post #35
burtonator wrote: post #7

Okular is actually the reason I created Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ Well, one of the reasons. First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows [1] Additionally, there were pretty severe bugs when I used it and there were 1-2 long outstanding bugs regarding annotations that weren't fixed…

What can you possibly object to about how it runs on linux? Its wholly reasonable that kde apps all build on the same foundation rather than each one bundle their own version of libraries. If the entire rest of your desktop happens to be based on gnome for example you end up with *doctor evil expression" HUNDREDS OF MB of extra libraries once the first time you install a kde app. Perish the thought.

Did I say something in my comment that makes it sound like Okular doesn't run amazingly well on Linux?

I was talking about if you run it on Windows or MacOS.

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#39

Post by burtonator »

georgewsinger wrote: post #28
burtonator wrote: post #7

Okular is actually the reason I created Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ Well, one of the reasons. First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows [1] Additionally, there were pretty severe bugs when I used it and there were 1-2 long outstanding bugs regarding annotations that weren't fixed…

Nice app. Suggestions for Polar: - Make it so that you can /draw/ on PDFs (Okular supports this). - Create an Android app which also allows local/offline usage.

Android app is coming... drawing isn't on the short term TODO though.

Re: My New Favorite Tool for Reviewing PDFs: Okular

#40

Post by jellicle »

anoncake wrote: post #30
burtonator wrote: post #7

Okular is actually the reason I created Polar: https://getpolarized.io/ Well, one of the reasons. First, if you like Okular, you're stuck if you want to run on any other platform. It doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work on the web, doesn't work on Linux, MacOS or Windows [1] Additionally, there were pretty severe bugs when I used it and there were 1-2 long outstanding bugs regarding annotations that weren't fixed…

You found that you had to download too much bloat to use Okular so you made an Electron app? Im pretty sure you dont have to download all of KDE to use one of its apps, just the package manager and the libraries Okular uses.

"apt install okular" requires an extra 195 packages and 194MB of space on a Ubuntu machine I have handy.

It's not all of KDE, but...

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