Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

[Darwin]

Bluebeam looks impressive - does it do OCR? I ask because it's nice to be able to convert a pdf into something that can be searched and indexed if it is based on scanned documents. Nuance really shines in this regard.

Regarding Nuance, I DO use the full package as my viewer - it opens up very quickly on my notebook and I can't see the point of having more than one application installed to handle pdfs.

[NigelH]

PDF-Xchange viewer drives me nuts regarding the time it takes to render some PDFs.
I can wait for 5-10 seconds before some pages are drawn.

The Nuance PDF Reader does not exhibit that behavior at all, in fact it's really quite fast.
The slow startup is annoying though, but it still may become my default reader.

[superboyac]

PDF-Xchange viewer drives me nuts regarding the time it takes to render some PDFs.
I can wait for 5-10 seconds before some pages are drawn.

The Nuance PDF Reader does not exhibit that behavior at all, in fact it's really quite fast.
The slow startup is annoying though, but it still may become my default reader.

I agree.  Overall, PDF-Xchange is my favorite viewer.  It's usually fast and I love the tabbed interface.  Fast startup, and it's portable.  But you are so right: on some pdf's in can take really long to render.  I tried tweaking the performance settings, but nothing seemed to work.  It's superior to acrobat in just about everything else, just not rendering times.  I wonder why?  Just recently, I re-associated my files with Acrobat because of the rendering, but now I want to go back because I miss the tabs.

[Darwin]

superboyac - are you still using Bluebeam? Or have you switched to Adobe Acrobt?

[superboyac]

superboyac - are you still using Bluebeam? Or have you switched to Adobe Acrobt?

I don't use Bluebeam for just viewing.  So that means it's not associated wit my pdf extension for double-clicking.  Bluebeam is overkill for just viewing because it's a very big program.  I still use Bluebeam exclusively for any kind of editing, it's the best for that.  But for viewing only, you want something with a very fast loading time and nice navigation features.  PDF-XChange is the best for that in my opinion.

[Darwin]

Gotcha... 

[superboyac]

Man, I've been really thinking about the different PDF viewers out there right now.  I'm pretty much convinced: PDF-Xchange is the best one.  I don't think it's really close.  It's really a very well done application.  Excellent.

[JavaJones]

Has anyone tried the new Adobe Reader X (10)?

- Oshyan

[superboyac]

Has anyone tried the new Adobe Reader X (10)?

- Oshyan

They better have put tabbed documents in it, or else it's worthless.