What is the current default pdf viewer?

Hello all,

I recently noticed that qpdfview drooped to AUR.
Since that was the default pdf viewer, when I set up my xfce system, I don’t have one anymore.
So I am wondering which one is the current default pdf viewer now?

So far I couldn’t find a good way to figure it out myself. I went through the ISO package lists, but that wasn’t very helpful…

Thank you in advance

I like evince - but currently I don’t have a dedicated program installed.
The browser is almost always open anyway - and it can handle pdf just fine (firefox).
And then there are the office programs like libreoffice, freeoffice, wps-office … which can all handle pdf

okular

That is KDE/Plasma, is it not?

to use it in Xfce, a whole bunch of QT dependencies are needed, I guess

but it is a good program

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This question was asked 2 years ago on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ManjaroLinux/comments/j93zm4/whats_the_default_pdf_viewereditor_in_manjaro_xfce/

@Nachlese
touche, you’re right

I ran into this too.

I don’t think it is documented.

This is what I do. View less /desktopfs-pkgs.txt or the gitlab file to get an idea of what is installed by default for the Xfce Desktop.

Execute the command (or use the pamac GUI), pacman -Ss pdf. This will search the Manjaro local repository and display the package where the name or description contains the string “pdf”. View the list; If a package is installed you will see “[installed]”.

When I was a KDE4 user, okular was the best option. When I started to use Plasma, okular had a ways to go. I have since moved on to Xfce, and like you, used qpdfview. I wanted to stay with GTK apps as much as possible and chose evince as the best alternative. If you don’t mind QT/Plasma applications you could try okular. It might be available via flatpak, but I’ve stayed with pacman packages.

The Firefox browser has made huge improvements in viewing and printing PDF’s.

xpdf is a nice small pdf reader only. I sometimes use pdftk or qpdf to manipulate PDF’s.

I use this site and archlinux wiki to get ideas.

I just quickly browsed through the thread theres, but it seems quite outdated. qpdfview dropped to AUR and therefore is not officially preinstalled anymore.

That was my first go too, but I obviously overlooked evince. :sweat_smile:

I totally missed that! It made quite some improvements. I regularly need the feature to annotate things, so since the pdf support of firefox in the beginning was quite rudimentary, I never really saw it as a considerable alternative. That seems to be about to change…

Thank you all,
I will have a look into the alternative and give them a try

Simple method to confirm the default viewer:

  • Boot Manjaro Xfce Live ISO
  • Click on the Manjaro User Guide pdf on the desktop

User Guide opens in Firefox

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