On 2024-01-19, Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> wrote:
> I confirm all the testimonials. The problem with Sumatra PDF is finding
> a way to pronounce the name of the author, Krzysztof Kowalczyk, not to
> mention spelling it.

I think, "rz" is like a blend of "r" and "zh"/"j" sounds, like "zh" with
a bit a tongue roll or trill.

"czyk" is more or less "chick".

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca
NOTE: If you use Google Groups, I don't see you, unless you're whitelisted.

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>On 17.01.2024 23:08, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>
>> xpdf is the best linux pdf viewer, in my opinion. I detest acroread,
>> evince and similar ilk.
>
>When I call xpdf I get the message "Use evince instead of xpdf!" - not
>from the xpdf tool but from a xpdf function I installed. (Not that I'd
>particularly like evince, but there obviously had been some deficiency
>with xpdf that even evince looked better to me.) So the my question is,
>if none of the ones mentioned above, what would a good PDF viewer then
>be?
>
>Janis
>
>PS: I just retried xpdf and found the reason for my former aversion...
>"Segmentation fault (core dumped)"

Download the latest source and rebuild it. Unless you're using wayland,
it should just work.

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:

> On 2024-01-19, Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> wrote:
>> I confirm all the testimonials. The problem with Sumatra PDF is finding
>> a way to pronounce the name of the author, Krzysztof Kowalczyk, not to
>> mention spelling it.
>
> I think, "rz" is like a blend of "r" and "zh"/"j" sounds, like "zh" with
> a bit a tongue roll or trill.
>
> "czyk" is more or less "chick".

So it's sort of ``Creestov Kovalchick''? (You really lost me with the
``zh/j'' thingie.)

On 19.01.2024 15:02, Kenny McCormack wrote:
> In article <uodkv0$33q7m$1@dont-email.me>,
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
> ...
>> PS: I just retried xpdf and found the reason for my former aversion...
>> "Segmentation fault (core dumped)"
>
> I assume this is just on one particular PDF file of yours, since obviously
> xpdf works on other files. It has always worked for me.

While software should _never_ crash depending on a provided argument
that the software cannot read or interpret correctly, a single PDF
it failed to read would not have unsettled me; uncaught exceptional
cases may appear in software (and should certainly be fixed).

But I found no PDF that works. After the call I see a window with the
text (for a very short instance of time), then some (ps like?) dump,
and the crash with the core-dump.

>
> Or, your installation of xpdf is broken...

Yes, probably. (Not a quality indication anyway.) But since I installed
it with the standard package manager of my Linux distro I don't want to
fiddle around with it. (Just my way of handling software that has quirks
when freshly installed; I de-install it, or just ignore it. There's so
many trashy software around that I am reluctant to waste time on that,
unless it would be the own option I have.)

Janis

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
> On 17.01.2024 23:08, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> xpdf is the best linux pdf viewer, in my opinion. I detest acroread,
>> evince and similar ilk.
>
> When I call xpdf I get the message "Use evince instead of xpdf!" - not
> from the xpdf tool but from a xpdf function I installed. (Not that I'd
> particularly like evince, but there obviously had been some deficiency
> with xpdf that even evince looked better to me.) So the my question is,
> if none of the ones mentioned above, what would a good PDF viewer then
> be?

I like zathura, <https://pwmt.org/projects/zathura/>. It uses vi-like
key bindings, so you can largely use it without a mouse. Its copy/paste
behavior is a bit odd; you highlight and copy text from a rectangular
region rather than a linear sequence of text.

On Ubuntu, you have to install both "zathura" and "zathura-pdf-poppler".

The current Cygwin version is substantially bit out of date. There's no
Windows version, unless you run it under Cygwin or WSL.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
Working, but not speaking, for Medtronic
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */

On 19.01.2024 17:53, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>>
>> PS: I just retried xpdf and found the reason for my former aversion...
>> "Segmentation fault (core dumped)"
>
> Download the latest source and rebuild it. Unless you're using wayland,
> it should just work.

So that implies that it's worth to reconsider using it, I assume.

("Only problem" I have is that it's the machine that I have frozen,
i.e. no recent libs installed and my experience is that software
of the "latest source" usually doesn't like to be compiled on such
versions. - But that is of course my problem, so don't bother. :-)

Janis

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>On 19.01.2024 15:02, Kenny McCormack wrote:
>> In article <uodkv0$33q7m$1@dont-email.me>,
>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
>>> PS: I just retried xpdf and found the reason for my former aversion...
>>> "Segmentation fault (core dumped)"
>>
>> I assume this is just on one particular PDF file of yours, since obviously
>> xpdf works on other files. It has always worked for me.
>
>While software should _never_ crash depending on a provided argument
>that the software cannot read or interpret correctly, a single PDF
>it failed to read would not have unsettled me; uncaught exceptional
>cases may appear in software (and should certainly be fixed).
>
>But I found no PDF that works. After the call I see a window with the
>text (for a very short instance of time), then some (ps like?) dump,
>and the crash with the core-dump.
>
>>
>> Or, your installation of xpdf is broken...
>
>Yes, probably. (Not a quality indication anyway.) But since I installed
>it with the standard package manager of my Linux distro I don't want to
>fiddle around with it. (Just my way of handling software that has quirks
>when freshly installed; I de-install it, or just ignore it. There's so
>many trashy software around that I am reluctant to waste time on that,
>unless it would be the own option I have.)
>
>Janis
>

I downloaded the most recent tarball from JIKs site, extracted
the sources, typed

$ xmkmf
$ make

I manually installed the application defaults file (important!).

https://www.mit.edu/people/jik/software/xrn.html

xmkmf comes from the 'imake' package, which is generally installed
as part of the distro x11 development package.

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>On 19.01.2024 17:53, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>> PS: I just retried xpdf and found the reason for my former aversion...
>>> "Segmentation fault (core dumped)"
>>
>> Download the latest source and rebuild it. Unless you're using wayland,
>> it should just work.
>
>So that implies that it's worth to reconsider using it, I assume.
>
>("Only problem" I have is that it's the machine that I have frozen,
>i.e. no recent libs installed and my experience is that software
>of the "latest source" usually doesn't like to be compiled on such
>versions. - But that is of course my problem, so don't bother. :-)

The nice thing about xpdf is that it doesn't need Motif, GTK2, GTK3,
QT or any other graphics library loaded.

Just the standard X11 tookkit libraries (Xt, Xaw, X11, etc) which
should already be there (although you may need to install the development
package to get headers and the link-time library spec) on most non-wayland
systems.

On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 12:03:59 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

> ... what would a good PDF viewer then be?

I use Okular because it’s the closest thing to a universal document
viewer. It has pluggable backends for viewing PDF, PostScript, DJVU, EPUB,
MOBI, CBR/CBZ, CHM ... I even accidentally opened a LibreOffice Write
document with it once, and it displayed that, too.

Den 2024-01-19 skrev Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>:
> On Fri, 19 Jan 2024 12:03:59 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
>> ... what would a good PDF viewer then be?
>
> I use Okular because it’s the closest thing to a universal document
> viewer. It has pluggable backends for viewing PDF, PostScript, DJVU, EPUB,
> MOBI, CBR/CBZ, CHM ... I even accidentally opened a LibreOffice Write
> document with it once, and it displayed that, too.

I like Okular as well. In addition to what you mention, I really like
that it allows me to search in a PDFs index and set bookmarks.
Something that's invaluable when reading a 9000+ page long datasheet.