PDF viewers and print-to-PDF printer drivers for Windows.
Hi Keith,
Thanks for pointing out:
http://www.cutepdf.comI have been using the free (as in free beer, not free open-source)
Bullzip PDF Windows printer driver which produces good PDFs from any
application:
http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.phpI tend not to use Adobe Reader for reading PDFs. It is a regular source
of security problems, by which browser getting a PDF file from a website
and handing it straight to Adobe Reader (which typically displays it
within the browser window). A properly crafted PDF can exploit security
vulnerabilities (I understand these are numerous and new ones are found
and exploited very often) in Adobe Reader to gain control of the
computer. I also find Adobe Reader is very slow to open the print
dialogue (Windows XP, with a bunch of printers) and that for some files,
at least with the Brother laser printers here, after a certain page all
the characters will be garbled to other characters.
A well known alternative is:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/which I used for a while and still have installed, along with a
regularly updated copy of Adobe Reader.
For web browsing and for opening PDFs from the Windows file manager, I
use the free open source Sumatra PDF, for Windows:
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.htmlIt opens files from the browser in its own window, not in the browser,
which can be a best if I want to know the URL of the PDF - but that can
be found in the browser's history. Its print capabilities are not as
sophisticated as those of Foxit or Adobe Reader, but it has easy
commands to open the PDF file in those readers. For instance, Adobe
Reader and I guess Foxit can be used to fill in PDF forms, which Sumatra
PDF can't. Sumatra PDF's author Krzysztof Kowalczyk responds rapidly to
bug reports via the Bug Tracker system. He makes his very latest
version immediately available - and he can update the program several
times a day.
There's no way of knowing how secure Sumatra PDF is, and it is possible
that hackers could find and exploit problems better because they have
the source code. However, it is less used and therefore I guess less
likely to be exploited by attackers. This is merely "security through
obscurity", but it is perhaps some advantage in what I think is a
globally persistent and disastrous situation with Internet-connected
computer insecurity:
http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2013-January/099126.html - Robin
http://www.firstpr.com.au/pcb-diy/