Sumatra PDF

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Sumatra PDF

Sumatra PDF 0.6 running on Windows XP
Developed by	Krzysztof Kowalczyk
Initial release	June 1, 2006
Latest release	0.8 / January 1, 2008
Written in	C++
OS	Windows
Available in	Multilingual
Genre	PDF reader
License	GPL
Website	blog.kowalczyk.info

Sumatra PDF, also known simply as Sumatra, is a free, open source, light-weight PDF reader for Microsoft Windows, written by Krzysztof Kowalczyk.^[1]

1 Features
- 1.1 Design
- 1.2 Compatibility
2 Criticism
3 Application name origin
4 Critical reception
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Features

Sumatra incorporates some unique features. It retains the last opened page for each PDF file, which is helpful to users reading e-books.

Sumatra does not lock the PDF file. This is convenient for recompiling a text document using the pdflatex or dvipdfm commands. Without closing the PDF file a user can recompile the text document and generate a new PDF file and then press the R key to refresh the PDF document.

[edit] Design

Sumatra has a minimalistic design, with its simplicity attained at the expense of extensive features.

Sumatra is composed from two parts:

MuPDF - PDF rendering library
Poppler - PDF library

Sumatra was designed for portable use, as it consists of one single file with no external dependencies, making it usable from an external USB drive.^[2] This classifies it as a portable application.^[1] As is characteristic of many portable applications, Sumatra takes up little disk space.^[1] It has a 1.1 MB setup file, compared to Adobe Reader's 22.4 MB, for Windows XP and Vista.^[3]

Sumatra is multilingual, with 20 community-contributed translations.^[4]

While there is no source code package by the author, the source code can be downloaded via the Subversion.^[5]^[6]

[edit] Compatibility

Officially, Windows 95, 98, Me and 2000 are not supported,^[7] but Sumatra may be somewhat usable on those operating systems.

[edit] Criticism

Sumatra has been criticized for:

Sumatra 0.5 and earlier versions can print PDFs that have disallowed printing. This feature has been removed from the newer versions.

Hyperlinks that are embedded in PDF documents are not active in Sumatra.^[8]

[edit] Application name origin

The author has indicated that the choice of the name "Sumatra" for this PDF reader is not a tribute to the Sumatra island or coffee, stating: "There's no particular reasoning behind the name."^[9]

[edit] Critical reception

Since its first release Sumatra has attracted the attention of software reviewers. There have been very few negative comments about the project.

Sumatra PDF is a fairly young project aiming to create a small, simple and fast PDF viewer. It main features are showing PDFs and starting up really fast - and it does both just perfectly.

—Anders Ingeman Rasmussen (2008). Sumatra PDF 0.8. Open Source Alternatives. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.

The program opens most of your common PDF files faster than you can say Adobe. It also uses keyboard shortcuts for quick navigation. And it's still under development.

—Brad Linder (2007-08-08). Sumatra PDF viewer: free, fast, tiny, and open source. Download Squad. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.

The Sumatra PDF Viewer is a tiny open source portable reader that opens PDF's in the blink of an eye. Bloat and startup time is a major drawback to Adobe Reader, so we fled to the faster arms of Foxit Reader long ago. However, at 850KB, Sumatra is way slimmer than FoxIt

—Gina Trapani (2007-08-09). Open PDF's in a flash with Sumatra. Lifehacker. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c Krzysztof Kowalczyk. Sumatra PDF - A PDF Viewer for Windows. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
^ Alan Henry (2007-08-11). Sumatra PDF Viewer: Fast and Simple PDF Reading. AppScout.
^ Adobe Systems Incorporated (2008). Adobe Reader. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
^ Krzysztof Kowalczyk. Translators. Sumatra PDF - A PDF Viewer for Windows. Retrieved on 2007-10-29.
^ Mohammad shafie; Krzysztof Kowalczyk, TJS (2007-07-03). Source Code. Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
^ Paul; Krzysztof Kowalczyk (2007-12-18). I can't dowload the source. Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
^ Tobias F.; Krzysztof Kowalczyk (2007-09-24). Missing Menubar. Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2007-10-27.
^ Hunt, Adam (2008-02-19). A Lightweight & Open Source PDF Reader. Open Source Windows?. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
^ Adam Hunt; Krzysztof Kowalczyk (2008-02-21). Name of Application. Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.