Install a program for pdf files. Download PDFMaster program

This category of programs includes free programs for reading and commenting (annotating) PDF documents that can replace the slow and bloated Adobe Reader. Despite many years of experience, Adobe Reader still lags behind its analogues in a number of parameters.

Note: Of course, here it is necessary to take into account that Adobe is a commercial company, so it cannot be particularly eager to develop the free version.

In any class of programs, it is necessary to define criteria based on which favorites can be identified. However, they must be balanced against the fact that each user has their own needs and preferences. Therefore, within this category, diverse criteria have been taken that are likely to take into account most needs. The criteria themselves:

• Ability to open PDF files. No, this is not a joke. Not all PDFs are created equal. The test set consisted of about a dozen different files. Various sizes, with different settings security, forms and graphic content. Basically, these are the typical files used by most people. It is worth noting that none of the programs reviewed was able to correctly display the test file with an Adobe 3D image. During the tests, a strict selection took place. Any reader that could not correctly read a PDF document, with the exception of this 3D file, was immediately excluded from consideration.
• File opening speed. IN in this case, the criterion was somewhat softer. It was a matter of seconds. If the difference in opening was a second or two, then it was acceptable. Agree that delays of a few seconds cause indignation. Especially if the document is small.
• Graphical user interface (GUI). In this case, both functionality and ease of use were taken into account. In slightly different words, how aesthetically pleasing the controls and functions are located, as well as how easy the entire interface will be for ordinary users to use.
• Experience in reading documents. This factor includes both intuitiveness (what to expect? where to look? what to click? etc.; essentially all navigation elements) and the speed of rendering text and images.
• Annotation (commenting) tools. One of important aspects PDF readers are able to mark, annotate and add images to an existing document. And subsequently save the result without watermarks of trial versions.
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR is the ability to convert a scanned image into readable text. And this is a fairly important feature. This feature makes the text inside the document searchable and copyable. Unfortunately, only one of the products reviewed contains this feature. Details later in the discussion.
• Installation process. In addition, all programs were considered from the point of view of ease of installation. There is a sad tendency to include various third-party and unnecessary, and sometimes even harmful, software products to the installer.

Note: The software has not been tested on Windows 8. However, there is information about support for Windows 8 on the developer sites.

Review of free programs for reading PDF files (readers)

Of the entire range of free PDF document readers available, the first two stand out the most. They include extensive capabilities for viewing and commenting on PDF files. But, about this in more detail and in order.

PDF-XChange Viewer full featured reader

This full-featured horse remains best choice in this category. Subject to the exclusion of files with 3D images indicated above. The program was able to quickly open and accurately display all files from the test build. At the same time, you can change the size of the pages and turn them over. Export documents and their parts to various image formats.

A tiled window interface with multiple tabs allows you to read and comment on multiple documents at once, without having to navigate through multiple open copies of the program. Plus, for quick movement, not only different variants displaying documents in the program window, but also maintaining navigation history. You can go through all the viewed parts of different documents with just a few clicks.

In addition to viewing capabilities, PDF-XChange includes a wide range of tools for annotating and bookmarking PDF documents. The Annotation Toolbox contains a variety of drawing tools, including a grid display for creating a precise drawing. Comments can be hidden, exported, or imported.

The program also supports document encryption, security and document properties management. All controls are easily accessible and easy to use. Unfortunately, unlike some other PDF readers, XChanger lacks the ability to add digital signatures.

One of the important parts of any PDF reader is searching for text in the file. And this is where PDF-XChanger outperforms all its peers. It can convert and save a scanned image or text as a picture in a PDF document into readable and searchable text. The OCR process allows you to obtain a convenient and indexable document.

Note: If you use various services or programs that can index the text of PDF documents, then most likely you already remember those foolish documents that happy occasion, made up of many beautiful pictures, including text.

It is worth noting that the interface is somewhat reminiscent of Windows XP. However, once you open the program, you will not have any particular complaints. The graphical interface is designed quite neatly and pleasantly.

Unfortunately, the installer includes a special browser panel. So if you do not like to use portable versions and prefer to install programs, then you should be careful during the installation process to avoid installing unnecessary and unnecessary software.

Foxit Reader PDF reader alternative to PDF-XChange

A worthy contender in this category is Foxit Reader, especially if you don't need OCR tools. The program was able to open and accurately transfer all the same files, even a little faster than PDF-XChanger.

Foxit includes similar features for viewing and navigating documents, adding the ability to read documents aloud. Like XChanger, all documents open as tabs, allowing you to quickly read and comment on multiple documents at once.

While other programs in this category have been relatively static in their development, Foxit has been constantly evolving. The latest version of Foxit already offers different display options GUI. Depending on how accustomed you are to various kinds views, you may like both the "classic" interface and the "ribbon" interface. The Ribbon is somewhat similar to Microsoft Office panels.

Of course, the annotation form tools may initially cause some problems, but other than that, navigation and editing, the controls are fairly well organized. Speaking generally about the interface, it is largely intuitive.

The array of annotation tools is as vast and impressive as PDF-XChange's. The user can fill out forms, fully comment on documents and save all work in the form in which he did it. Foxit includes some unique controls that allow you to add pictures, media files, and so on.

The program supports some functions for collaborative editing and sharing via social media. The program allows you to sign and check for validity documents with an electronic signature using the commercial service DocuSign. Although Foxit can open encrypted files, it unfortunately lacks features to configure file security.

Carefully! Foxit comes with various unwanted components that will try to install toolbars in the browser and change system settings. The components themselves change regularly. Users need to take great care during the installation process to avoid problems.

Sumatra PDF Viewer is an excellent simple program for reading pdf files

If all you need from a PDF reader is reading and printing. Then Sumatra is what you were looking for. Perhaps the utility is not so rich in capabilities and has a number of limitations in image rendering, but this is compensated by a large set of different viewing options. As you probably already understood, Sumatra does not allow editing or commenting on documents.

Note: To be somewhat honest, not many ordinary users know about the very possibility of commenting. Most people use this class of programs exclusively for reading documents.

Quick Selection Guide (links to download programs for reading PDF files)

PDF-XChange Viewer

Foxit Reader

If you have ever downloaded books, reports or other text documents from the Internet, then you have probably come across files that have the pdf extension. Finding themselves in such a situation, users often do not know how to open a PDF file. As a rule, programs for working with PDF are simply installed on the computer, which confuses many. In this article we will briefly look at a number of popular programs that allow you to open PDF files.

One of the most popular programs is certainly Adobe (Acrobat) Reader. This program is developed by Adobe. Adobe Reader provides the user with a full set of basic functions for reading and viewing PDF documents. If this is your first time encountering this type of document and you don’t know how to open a PDF file, then Adobe Reader perfect choice for you.

In addition to Adobe Reader, Adobe produces software for creating PDF documents. This is an Adobe Acrobat program. This program is paid and is available in two versions: Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro.

Screenshot of Adobe (Acrobat) Reader:

You can learn more about the Adobe Reader program from the official website.

Another quite popular program for working with PDF documents. Foxit Reader has gained popularity due to its simplicity and low requirements for system resources. Foxit Reader can be used without problems even on the most weak computers. For a long time this program was distributed without an installer, just as an EXE file ready for use.

At the same time, Foxit Reader is practically in no way inferior to Adobe Reader. It has all the necessary functions to fully work with PDF files. When people ask me how to open a pdf file, I recommend this program.

It should be noted that Foxit Reader is a cross-platform solution. Now there are versions of this program for such operating systems as: Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, iOS, Android and Symbian.

Screenshot of Foxit Reader:

To know more about this software, visit the official website.

Another easy one fast program for reading pdf documents. In addition to simply reading pdf documents, Cool PDF Reader is equipped with a number of other features that set it apart from its competitors.

Let's take a closer look at the main features of the Cool PDF Reader program:

• View and print PDF documents;
• Convert PDF documents into formats such as: TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF and EPS;
• Extract text from PDF format to TXT;
• Supports all versions of PDF format;
• Supports 68 different languages;
• View PDF files as slide shows;

Moreover, the program is only 808 kilobytes in size and is not very demanding on computer resources.

Screenshot of Cool PDF Reader:

You can learn more about the Cool PDF Reader program on the official website.

Sumatra PDF this is an open source program source code. In addition to PDF files, it can also work with files in ePub, XPS, MOBI, CHM, DjVu, CBZ and CBR formats. This program is available both as an installer and in a portable version.

Other features of the Sumatra PDF program include:

• Simple and intuitive interface;
• Supports more than 60 languages;
• Correct smoothing of images when scaling the document;
• Regular updates;

Screenshot of the Sumatra PDF program:

You can find out more about the program on the official website.

STDU Viewer is a universal viewing program electronic documents. STDU Viewer supports a large number of formats and is equipped with all the necessary functions to work with them. By installing this program, you will no longer have questions about how to open a PDF file or a document in another format. STDU Viewer will solve all your problems.

Let's take a closer look at the main features of the STDU Viewer program:

• View documents in formats: PDF, Comic Book Archive (CBR or CBZ), DjVu, FB2, XPS, TCR, ePub, multi-page TIFF, TXT, EMF, WMF, PalmDoc, BMP, JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PCX, DCX , PSD, MOBI and AZW;
• Simple and intuitive interface with tab support;
• Ability to customize document display parameters (brightness, contrast, etc.);
• View page thumbnails;
• Creating custom bookmarks;
• For text documents, the user can control the size and color of fonts;
• Powerful search in text documents;
• Support for several languages, including Russian;
• Ability to print documents;

STDU Viewer is a fairly young program. The first version of STDU Viewer appeared in 2007. Then the program supported only three formats: PDF, DjVu and TIFF. As you can see, during development the program passed long haul and now allows you to open a large number of different formats.

Screenshot of the STDU Viewer program:

You can find out more about this program on the official website.

A few words about PFD format

PDF or Portable Document Format is one of the most common electronic document formats. This format was developed by Adobe Systems. The first version of the format appeared back in 1993. After this, the format actively developed. Almost every year it added support for new functions. Thus, during development, the following features were added to the Portable Document Format: password protection, Unicode support, interactive elements, links, digital signatures, transparency, text layers, forms, encryption and much more.

The main purpose of PDF is the publication of printed products in in electronic format. Most professional printing equipment supports the format and can print such documents without additional processing or conversion.

At the beginning of its journey, the PDF format was not very popular. And there were objective reasons for this:

• The necessary software to work with the format was paid;
• The format did not support external links, which did not allow it to be fully used on the World Wide Web;
• PDF files weighed significantly more than regular text documents. This also created barriers to using it online;
• Processing documents in this format required significant system resources, which led to slow document display on weak computers:
• In addition, there were other formats that created competition.

Now, none of these issues are relevant to the PDF format anymore. Adobe has released a free version of the program for viewing PDF files, and programs from other manufacturers have also appeared.

Over more than 10 years of existence, the format has come a long way in development and this moment is a very powerful and flexible document creation tool.

PDF is one of the most common formats for documentation, e-books and instructions. In PDF format, you can save information in any form, and it will be displayed the same everywhere, i.e. The formatting and layout of the document will always be the same. This is why the PDF format has earned its recognition.

To begin with, I would like to immediately clarify that the programs that will be discussed open PDF files only FOR VIEWING, i.e. It is IMPOSSIBLE to change anything in a document using them. Some programs only allow you to modify the text, but not the content. The PDF format itself is quite specific, and even with the help of editors, the process of editing it is not at all similar to working with a Word document.

In the simplest case, you can read the file in any modern browser: Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer,Edge. The functionality will be limited: only viewing content and printing. To do this, simply drag the file to an empty browser tab. But if the PDF file does not open this way, then try installing one of the programs.

Uncompromising Acrobat

In order not to have any problems with displaying PDF files, it is best to install the program of the format developer itself - Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Just select the program language “Russian” if the download page itself does not correctly determine it. The installation process is trivial, just click “Next” all the time.

Adobe has a complete package for working with PDF documents, including creating and editing - but it is paid.

Acrobat Reader provides good set capabilities and flexibility in configuration for ease of use. It's completely free for both home and commercial use and is on my list. When you first start, you will need to confirm the use of a free license. Most likely, you won’t even have to go into the settings, because the program works great by default.

IN latest versions Adobe Reader still has a small opportunity to change the file. These are tools for highlighting text and inserting comments. The title “Text Highlighting” is probably not a very good Russian translation, because... “Text highlighting” is more suitable. To highlight the text, click on the icon in the toolbar and select the text, and the add comments icon is located immediately to the left.

By default, text is highlighted yellow. You can change the highlight color only after highlighting with the default color. To do this, double-click on the selection and in the window click on the icon and select “Properties”. From there you can remove the highlight and add or change a comment.

Alternative programs for PDF

Acrobat Reader, of course, is far from the only PDF viewer. The developers managed to make an ordinary viewer a relatively heavy product. Basically there are no problems, but the program takes a long time to install and sometimes slows down.

Foxit Reader

The program is lightweight and has a simple interface. As a result, Foxit Reader launches quickly and is less demanding on computer resources.

Particular attention is paid to security, namely, at the first start it is proposed to install safe mode, which does not open attachments in the document and does not run scripts. Foxit Reader allows you to select text, insert comments, graphic objects, multimedia files (video and audio), but you can edit text only in the paid package Foxit PDF Editor.

However, over time, Foxit Reader has also become heavier, so I advise you to run its portable version.

Portable versions are distinguished by the fact that they are lighter and installation is very quick or not required at all. When you first start it, a window with two buttons will pop up, select “Not Now”. For the program to become in Russian, you need to go to the menu “File -> Preferences -> Language -> select Russian”

And restart the program with the “Restart Now” button.

The easiest one is Sumatra PDF

This is already an open source project, the program is the lightest and is not at all demanding on resources. Can open not only PDF, but also CHM, XPS, DjVu, CBZ and CBR files.

Two versions are available: for installation and portable (works without installation). Since Sumatra PDF is already very lightweight, I advise you to download the full version, so you can immediately install the program to open all PDF files by default.

The program has practically no settings, everything is easy and simple.

The .PDF format appeared in 1993, and was developed by Adobe Systems. Explanation of the abbreviation in the extension name - Portable Document Format.

Program for opening PDF files

The standard option for those cases when you need to open a PDF file and view its contents. This program was created by the same company that developed the .PDF format, and is undoubtedly the most popular “reader”. We also convert Pdf using this program. Free software (a paid subscription to the Pro version will allow you to create and edit files with the PDF extension).

What are PDF files used for?

Most often, files with this extension are product manuals, e-books, flyers, work applications, scanned documents and brochures.

The reason for the popularity of this format is that PDF files do not depend on the programs in which they were created, nor on any specific operating system or hardware. They will look the same from any device.

For convenience, we will distinguish four types of programs: viewers (for reading and annotating), editors (for editing text and other content), managers (for splitting, compressing and other manipulations with files) and converters (for converting PDF to other formats).

Most applications can be classified into several types at once.

• Type: viewer, editor, converter, manager.
• Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux.

A very intuitive and convenient program with an impressive number of functions. When you launch Sejda PDF, you will immediately see all the tools grouped by category. Select the one you need, drag the required file into the program window and start manipulating. Most things in this app can be done in a few seconds, even if you are using it for the first time.

What you can do in Sejda PDF:

• edit text, add images and shapes;
• convert PDF to Excel, JPG (and vice versa), Word (and vice versa);
• combine and separate files into pages, compress their size;
• protect documents with a password;
• add watermarks;
• discolor documents;
• trim page area;
• sign documents.

The free version of the program has limitations. For example, files should not be more than 200 pages and not exceed 50 MB in size. In addition, you cannot perform more than three operations with documents during the day. Price full version Sejda PDF is $5.25 per month.

• Type: manager, converter, editor.
• Platforms: Windows, macOS, .

PDFsam cannot boast of a polished, user-friendly interface. In addition, the program does not allow you to convert PDF and edit the contents of documents for free. But it does have several useful managerial functions that are available to everyone without payment or any restrictions.

What you can do in PDFsam:

• combine PDF in several modes (glue in parts or mix page by page);
• split PDF by pages, bookmarks (in places with specified words) and size into separate documents;
• rotate pages (if some of them were scanned upside down);
• extract pages with specified numbers;
• convert Excel, Word, PowerPoint formats to PDF;
• convert PDF to Excel, Word and PowerPoint formats ($10);
• edit text and other file content ($30).

• Type
• Platforms: Windows.

Very functional program with a classic interface in the style of Microsoft office applications. PDF-XChange Editor is not very beginner friendly. To master all the features of the program, you need to spend some time. Fortunately, everyone internal descriptions and tips are translated into Russian.

What you can do in PDF-XChange Editor:

• add annotations and highlight text;
• edit text and other content;
• recognize text using OCR;
• extract pages from documents;
• encrypt documents (paid);
• convert PDF to Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats and vice versa (paid);
• compress files (paid);
• sort pages in any order (paid).

These are not all the functions that you can find in PDF-XChange Editor. The program is available in several versions with different amounts opportunities. The cost of paid versions starts at $43.5.

• Type: viewer, manager, converter, editor.
• Platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS.

A popular universal program for working with PDF from the company. Free version is a very convenient document viewer; other functions are available by subscription starting at 149 rubles per month.

What you can do in Adobe Acrobat Reader:

• view documents, highlight and comment on text, search for words and phrases;
• sign documents (paid);
• edit text and other content (paid);
• combine documents into one file (paid);
• compress files (paid);
• convert PDF to Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats (paid);
• Convert images in JPG, JPEG, TIF and BMP formats to PDF (paid).

All these features and more are available in desktop versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Mobile versions the programs only allow you to view and annotate documents, and also - after subscribing - convert them into different formats.

• Type: viewer, converter.
• Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS.

Fast and convenient PDF reader with different viewing modes. Ideal for users who want a simple document reader without a lot of extra features. The program is available on all major platforms.