Nowadays, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) has become a standard for reading ebooks and online documentation. To view PDF we need a PDF reader or PDF viewer. Currently there are a lot of free tools for viewing and printing PDF files in the Linux environment. Here I just only compile the best list of five popular PDF viewers for Ubuntu users. All these tools can be installed easily in Ubuntu Linux.


1. Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing and printing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. This package is in Medibuntu because Ubuntu no longer provides it as it might violate patents.

  • To install Adobe Reader
sudo apt-get install acroread
  • To install Acrobat Reader Plugin for Firefox
sudo apt-get install mozilla-acroread acroread-plugins
2. XPDF
xpdf is a suite of tools for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. This tools include a PDF viewer and PDF converters (including to/from PostScript).
  • To install this tool
sudo apt-get install xpdf

3. PDF Viewer for Gnome
Evince is a simple multi-page document viewer. It can display and print PostScript (PS), Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), DJVU, DVI and Portable Document Format (PDF) files. When supported by the document, it also allows searching for text, copying text to the clipboard, hypertext navigation, and table-of-contents bookmarks.
  • To install this tool
sudo apt-get install evince

4. PDF Viewer for KDE
Kpdf allows you to view PDF (Portable Document Format) files. This package includes kpdfpart so you can embed in konqueror or run as a standalone application. This package is part of KDE, as a component of the KDE graphics module.
  • To install this tool
sudo apt-get install kpdf
5. PostScript Viewer
gv is a comfortable viewer of PostScript and PDF files for the X Window System. It uses the ghostscript PostScript interpreter and is based on the classic X front-end for gs, ghostview, which it has replaced now.
  • To install this tool
sudo apt-get install gv

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