Acrobat Reader alternative that does Form fields Highlights
Posted: Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:19 am
Hi, I recently migrated my laptop from Win7 to Linux Mint(got tired of the ever increasing boottime as time passed) I already dabbled a bit in linux over the years so it's not completely new to me.
I have to deal with PDF on a daily basis, and many of them have forms with fields you can edit. So I am trying to find a PDF reader that correctly display PDF forms fields highlight(you know, the blue background that indicate the fields that you can fill while the fields that are not editable remain white) Every windows PDF reader does it, yet I can't find one native to linux that does it, or that even work fine with forms.
Okular: Doesn't highlight fields, and when I select Show Forms, every forms fields that are a "buttons" that you can click to, say, erase the content of a bunch of field at once, won't display correctly the text within. Unusable for my need.
Evince: Doesn't highlight editable fields and it has problems with many PDF I have where it won't display drop-down boxes correctly. Unusable for my need.
Acrobat Reader 9: Heck, everything should work with the original, right? Yes, it works, fields are highlighted correctly and everything works, minus the performance. It is ssooooooo slow scrolling pages that it's unusable! And my laptop is recent, Core I3 with 4 gig of ram. I guess they never optimized their reader for linux. Unusable for my need.
PDF X-Change viewer under Wine: So in the end I was left trying Windows pdf reader under Wine. It works, and fields are highlighted, everything works with drop-down forms, and scrolling is smooth. The only annoying thing is that I can't double click a PDF doc directly to open it. I first have to open PD X-Change and then drag the PDF into it. A minor complaint you would say, but still highly annoying when you work with so many PDF.
So I thought I'd ask here, do you know any other PDF reader that correctly support fields highlight and forms funvtion like drop-down menu? Or, is it possible to make programs running under Wine become the default programs to open PDF?
Thanks!
I have to deal with PDF on a daily basis, and many of them have forms with fields you can edit. So I am trying to find a PDF reader that correctly display PDF forms fields highlight(you know, the blue background that indicate the fields that you can fill while the fields that are not editable remain white) Every windows PDF reader does it, yet I can't find one native to linux that does it, or that even work fine with forms.
Okular: Doesn't highlight fields, and when I select Show Forms, every forms fields that are a "buttons" that you can click to, say, erase the content of a bunch of field at once, won't display correctly the text within. Unusable for my need.
Evince: Doesn't highlight editable fields and it has problems with many PDF I have where it won't display drop-down boxes correctly. Unusable for my need.
Acrobat Reader 9: Heck, everything should work with the original, right? Yes, it works, fields are highlighted correctly and everything works, minus the performance. It is ssooooooo slow scrolling pages that it's unusable! And my laptop is recent, Core I3 with 4 gig of ram. I guess they never optimized their reader for linux. Unusable for my need.
PDF X-Change viewer under Wine: So in the end I was left trying Windows pdf reader under Wine. It works, and fields are highlighted, everything works with drop-down forms, and scrolling is smooth. The only annoying thing is that I can't double click a PDF doc directly to open it. I first have to open PD X-Change and then drag the PDF into it. A minor complaint you would say, but still highly annoying when you work with so many PDF.
So I thought I'd ask here, do you know any other PDF reader that correctly support fields highlight and forms funvtion like drop-down menu? Or, is it possible to make programs running under Wine become the default programs to open PDF?
Thanks!