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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers
« on: May 09, 2007, 01:13 PM »
CRT Report:
I used the PDF, which, by the way, I cannot load successfully from the site but is available here:
www.christianmontoya.com/wp-content/ uploads/2007/03/vista-web-fonts-montoya-herald.pdf
OR
http://tinyurl.com/33exy7
Adobe 8 looks best on my Compaq FS7600 17" CRT at 1024X768 with smoothing for CRT. Comparing Foxit [latest free non-beta version] with Adobe 8, whether at "actual size" or magnified, shows Adobe 8 marginally clearer, with Foxit being almost as good--almost as readable but sort of more like bold type and darker [at first glance Foxit seems superior but is actually not as clean or legible].
After all the discussion, I was surprised to see very little difference between Adobe and Foxit in my experience using your test file. I would not agree with "render quality was so poor I could not see the text correctly."
Now I have had rendering problems with both Adobe and Foxit from file to file. Some files work better on Foxit than Adobe, so I keep both of them around. Occasionally one or the other reader will spring a big memory leak viewing one or another file and have to be terminated.
This is just my results, XP SP2 Home. Clear type is shut off, as tests with it show no improvement, in fact it makes the type look more blurry.
I second others' poor opinion of Cool PDF, and PDF-XChange Viewer sounds like a great candidate, but I'll probably stick with Foxit as default and Adobe available by right click.
One item with Foxit, is my display flashes from time to time very briefly when using Foxit. I presume this is the software rendering or re-rendering portions of the PDF.
I used the PDF, which, by the way, I cannot load successfully from the site but is available here:
www.christianmontoya.com/wp-content/ uploads/2007/03/vista-web-fonts-montoya-herald.pdf
OR
http://tinyurl.com/33exy7
Adobe 8 looks best on my Compaq FS7600 17" CRT at 1024X768 with smoothing for CRT. Comparing Foxit [latest free non-beta version] with Adobe 8, whether at "actual size" or magnified, shows Adobe 8 marginally clearer, with Foxit being almost as good--almost as readable but sort of more like bold type and darker [at first glance Foxit seems superior but is actually not as clean or legible].
After all the discussion, I was surprised to see very little difference between Adobe and Foxit in my experience using your test file. I would not agree with "render quality was so poor I could not see the text correctly."
Now I have had rendering problems with both Adobe and Foxit from file to file. Some files work better on Foxit than Adobe, so I keep both of them around. Occasionally one or the other reader will spring a big memory leak viewing one or another file and have to be terminated.
This is just my results, XP SP2 Home. Clear type is shut off, as tests with it show no improvement, in fact it makes the type look more blurry.
I second others' poor opinion of Cool PDF, and PDF-XChange Viewer sounds like a great candidate, but I'll probably stick with Foxit as default and Adobe available by right click.
One item with Foxit, is my display flashes from time to time very briefly when using Foxit. I presume this is the software rendering or re-rendering portions of the PDF.