Best Pdf Reader For Books Mac

Adobe's free PDF reader has long been a standard for handling its extremely popular document format, but you aren't limited to using it to view your PDF files. Let's take a look at five of the most popular PDF readers.

SumatraPDF is an open source and lightweight PDF reader software that you can install and use on your Windows computer. Licensed under GPLv3 license, SumatraPDF supports formats other than PDF as. Foxit Reader for Mac is a free PDF editor for mac, fast and lightweight. PDF users may be quite familiar with Foxit, the leading PDF software developer to offer PDF solutions. PDF users may be quite familiar with Foxit, the leading PDF software developer to offer PDF solutions. 3 Best Adobe Reader for Mac Alternatives. Adobe Reader for Mac is often the only PDF application people know about, but there are actually many excellent alternatives, most free and some with more features than Adobe Reader for Mac. Foxit Reader. Foxit Reader is a lightweight and fast PDF solution with a familiar user interface and plenty of features.

Original image by iowa spirit walker.

Last week we asked you to share your favorite PDF reader, and now we're back to share the results.

Best Pdf Reader For Windows 10

Best PDF Reader?

PDFs have become quite a mainstay in the document world, with a plethora of readers having cropped…

Sumatra PDF (Windows, Free)

Sumatra PDF is an ultra-lightweight and open-source portable application. The emphasis with Sumatra PDF is not on the number of features and the wide-ranging abilities of the application, but instead on speed. It loads almost instantly, renders pages extremely quickly, and thanks to a huge number of keyboard shortcuts, you can zip through nearly any document with ease. Sumatra PDF, thanks to a lack of frills and extraneous features, is a great candidate for a portable drive or for in-browser use for someone who wants quick-loading PDF files without the lag caused by features they won't ever use.

Preview (Mac, Free)

Preview is Apple's free PDF viewer, built into OS X. It's no mystery many Mac users have no need to step beyond the built-in tool. Preview has quite a few features often only found in commercial PDF software, like the ability to drag and drop pages between documents, page extraction, encryption, and text annotation. In addition to viewing PDF files, Preview can display over two dozen other file formats, making it quite a versatile little viewer.

Foxit (Windows/Linux, Basic: Free/Pro Pack: $39.99)

Foxit is a polished Acrobat-alternative that, on top of cleanly displaying PDF files with a minimal interface, also has a host of handy features—all packed into a lightweight 6MB package. Foxit loads immediately, without any splash page or lag from plug-ins loading. Reading PDFs is just as snappy, and in-text pictures and charts render quickly. When filling out PDF forms, you can save your progress in the form and return later to finish filling it out. While both the free and the Pro version allow you to annotate text, insert graphics and drawings, and insert links, the free version adds a Foxit stamp on each page you annotate; the pro version removes the marking. Foxit is available as a portable application.

Adobe Acrobat (Windows/Mac/Linux, Basic: Free/Pro: $299)

Adobe Reader is Adobe's default offering for viewing PDFs. Acrobat enjoys widespread popularity as a result of being offered by the company that created the PDF. For light PDF users, it's a more than adequate tool, although frequent users may seek to try a lighter alternative to get rid of the long load times and the lag that can occur when Acrobat loads within a web browser pane. You can attach sticky notes to pages and highlight text for your own review. More advanced features, like PDF creation, saving PDFs in other formats, and the ability to merge PDF files, are only available with an upgrade to Acrobat Standard for $299.

PDF-XChange (Windows, Basic: Free/Pro: $34)

PDF-XChange is another Adobe-alternative in today's Hive that boasts snappy load times and basic functionality that outpaces the basic functionality of Adobe Reader. With PDF-XChange you can open and browse PDF documents, perform simple page annotations with drawings and text, and type outside of preset form boxes by using the PDF-XChange typewriter tool to place text wherever you want. Advanced features like reorganizing pages and text extraction are only available with the Pro upgrade. PDF-Xchange is available as a portable application.

Now that you've had a chance to look over the candidates—and hopefully get a chance to test them out, since so many are conveniently portable!—it's time to cast your vote in the poll below:

Which PDF Viewer is Best?(survey software)

Love a PDF application that didn't make the cut? Have a trick for making Adobe Acrobat load faster? Share your PDF tips and tricks in the comments.

Comic books as a medium seem tailor-made for tablets, even if the timeline doesn’t precisely add up. But there are a surprising amount of comic reading applications meant for old-fashioned desktop machines, too. This stuff comes in handy for gadgets that blur the lines, like the Microsoft Surface, or for someone who’s amassed a large collection of DRM-free comic book files.

Pdf Reader On Mac

MComix: Windows, Linux

If you’re looking for a simple, easy-to-use comic reader with enough features to give you some extra bells and whistles, MComix should probably be your first stop. It’s free and open source, based on the older and now abandoned Comix reader project, regularly updated for Windows and Linux. If it had a macOS version, we might just be able to end this article right here.

The interface has a basic library function, but it’s easier to simply open your files (CBR, CBZ, and PDF, among more pedestrian image formats) directly from your computer’s file explorer. The reading view makes it easy to find your page with thumbnails along the left side, and various fit modes along with a full screen view are handy in both button and hotkey flavors. The reader supports double-page views to best emulate comic reading, and a right-to-left mode for those who prefer manga to western-style comics.

The download comes as a standalone package, so you don’t even need to install anything, though you might want to associate some of the more common comic file types with MComix soon after trying it out.

YACReader: Windows, macOS, Linux

If you live a multi-OS lifestyle and you prefer some cross-platform consistency, YACReader is probably your best bet. It supports all of the common file types and archives, with a focus on building up an extensive and well-organized library of personal comics. The application will automatically fetch tags and issue data from the ComicVine database, and those who are keen on sharing with friends can install the UI-free server version to remotely host comics on iOS.

The application is available on Windows in both installer and portable flavors, plus 64-bit macOS and various Linux distro versions. The interface itself is a bit minimal for my taste, but it quickly disappears if you’re reading in full screen anyway. Sadly, though YACReader plays nice with all three major desktop platforms and can remotely serve files to iOS, there’s no Android client as of yet.

Comicrack: Windows

Though ComicRack comes in Android and iOS flavors, it’s Windows-only on the desktop. Which is weird, because it’s one of the more technical and analytical options out there. The tabbed interface supports reading multiple books at once, and its double-pane main view focuses on the user’s library or standard file browsing more than some of the other programs on this list. But for the comic enthusiast who’s serious about managing a large collection, this could be the best option.

Once you dig into ComicRack, you see it’s a little more forgiving than it appears at first glance, with a double- and triple-column option and a handy all-in-one page view. Double-tapping the F button will switch from standard fullscreen view to a minimalist windowed look—good for reading while you keep an eye on something else on your computer. It also functions as the most feature-rich viewer when used as a pure file manager.

SimpleComic: macOS

SimpleComic uses the fluid, and integrated user interface that was popular with mid-aughts OS X design to create what’s probably the simplest comic reader around. Though it supports all the common archive formats and includes the usual bells and whistles like double-page display and right-to-left reading, it does so with a minimal interface that will make you nostalgic for a Steve Jobs software demo. It’s probably the simplest and best-looking item on this list (with no particular care for libraries or tagging), so it’s a pity that the developer has only released a macOS version.

MangaMeeya: Windows

While you can certainly use MangaMeeya for western comics, it’s designed specifically for Japanese-style manga. This focus extends to more than just the right-to-left default page layout: the image display includes various tools that make black-and-white scans more visible and legible on computer screens, something that isn’t typically a concern for full color graphic novels. That specialization does seem to be a bit of a detriment for those looking for wider image file support or library tools, though—you’ll have to keep your files organized manually in Windows Explorer. On that note, it’s only available for Windows, more’s the pity.

Comic CBR, CBZ Viewer: Chrome

The Chrome Web Store isn’t exactly littered with dedicated comic viewers, but this seems to be the best among a very short field of contenders. The minimal interface can load up CBR or CBZ archive files wither from your personal Google Drive account or on your local machine. The super-simple interface offers one- or two-page views with standard or right-to-left reading, with the fullscreen option controlled by the browser itself. Like many Chrome extensions, this one is supported by advertising, and there’s no way to pay to get rid of the web-based ads. The extension will work on Chrome OS devices and more standard desktops, but with the options laid out above, there’s really no reason to use it on anything but a Chromebook.