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Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

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Armando:
I tried Foxit Reader, and with the "Display texts optimized for LCD screen" option, I find it Okay -- a bit lighter than the Adobe Reader, which could be annoying (actually, at 100% or 125%, on my laptop screen, I find Foxit easy enough on the eyes. But that's subjective, of course). Apart from that, it's faster, the scrolling is smooth, has more options (convenient annotation tools...), and takes almost 1/4 of the RAM Adobe Reader uses. I wonder if it's compatible with all the new gadgets though. Anyway : for my ebook reading usage, it's more than enough.

Darwin:
I just discovered that I can have my cake and eat it too. For some reason, setting Adobe Reader as the default handler for pdf's DOES NOT make it the default handler for viewing pdf's from within my web browser. Sweet - Foxit for the web (small footprint and quick to open) and Adobe Reader for everything else. I'm going to try this set up for a while and see if "it suits".

kimmchii:
you should use ClearTweak, enable LCD optimization in foxit makes no difference to me because Cleartweak has already optimized everything for me in all applications.

leland:
Thanks Ampa for adding Cool PDF.  I had found it somewhat useful before Foxit 2 came out, but after that I haven't really used it since.  Your mini review is a great reference when looking for a good viewer so I wanted to know what you thought.  I just tried the PDF-XChange Viewer and you are right it is very cool.  It has enough features I like it may replace Foxit as my favorite non-Adobe viewer.  I especially like the little button in the lower right of the window that allows you to open your currently opened file in Adobe Reader.  Thanks again.

Leland
:D

gestalter:
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.

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