The simplicity and speed of Sumatra PDF has already been acknowledged here; I like that too, but I just want to point out a few other things:
1) This must be the cleanest looking PDF reader around. The latest version has added tab support, but the tab bar is superimposed on the titlebar, which frees up some vertical space. The conventional menu bar has been replaced by a button at the top left corner which brings up a cascading main menu.
2) As the SnapFiles editor mentioned, the app also supports the CHM format, which is used for help files. Opening a help file in Sumatra makes it much easier to read, because you can zoom it to a comfortable reading size. Also, the indexes in most of those help files will show up in the left-hand sidebar as bookmarks once you enable them.
3) I've tried several other PDF readers. All of them surpass the bloated reader from Adobe. STDU Viewer, which I've reviewed here as well, is good, but I've just discovered that its rendering of PDFs is inferior to that of Sumatra, especially in music scores. Curved lines appear jagged in STDU but are much smoother in Sumatra. In addition, STDU sometimes misaligns notes on the staff, which makes the score hard to read.
Review details
- Interface
- Features
- Ease of use
- Value
- Recommend to a friend? Yes
- Posted May 23, 2015 for v3.0
When I want to view a PDF I'd like the viewer to display pages properly. Some of the free PDF viewers have some problems doing this. For example, if there are a mix of horizontal and vertical pages some viewers display the horizontal page with part of the next page which is vertical. Sometimes full page view is not possible. Sumatra PDF seems to have no problem with displaying the images the way I want it to...and that's the most important thing.
Also its other strong point is the speed at which it can load and turn to each page. Some other free PDF viewers tend to be slow at displaying large images and freeze for awhile. In addition Sumatra PDF has all of the options you'd expect from a PDF viewer. You can custom view pages the way you want, zoom and set bookmarks. The interface is clean and easy to use, and the speed-dial page is really a great unique feature in Sumatra PDF viewer. Lastly, it is a great simple ecomic and ebook reader(other free PDF viewers can't do that).
The only thing that Sumatra PDF lacks are extract, conversion, add notes and digital signing tools(and other features) that other free PDF viewers have. I'd love to see these features added in the future because it would make Sumatra PDF the perfect PDF viewer to have. But, if viewing is all you want to do then it is a 5-star PDF viewer for you.
Review details
- Interface
- Features
- Ease of use
- Value
- Recommend to a friend? Yes
- Posted Mar 29, 2015 for v3.0
DocPad
Free
NAPS2 (Not Another PDF Scanner)
Free
Review details
by hostile177729
Feb 22, 2014
(Read all my 2 reviews)
