w/ Linux?

[brianjd]

Q: Can anyone suggest a good solution for marking up .pdf's in Linux?

I'm a PhD student reading a LOT of .pdf journal articles and LOVE the markup tools via GUI in PDF XChange Viewer. I've been using the free Viewer for a while now and just upgraded to Pro. It's wonderful! My only issue is that I'm now considering migrating some work over to Linux. A couple possible solutions I've come across:

1) PDF XChange Viewer via WINE -- appears from <http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... ngId=15527> that' it's mostly working. Is anyone having any issues with this?
2) native Linux .pdf markup tool -- anyone know which of these <http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/PDF> is closest to PDF XChange viewer in terms of markup capabilities via GUI?

I know this probably isn't the best venue to ask the last question...but maybe someone can give me an honest opinion?

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

brianjd,

We are not that kind of people that will not advise you for another product if it can do something ours can't (e.g. work under linux) but I am affraid that as a "not-so-enthusiastic" linux user I have no insight on either of the products mentioned on the page you linked.
And as for WINE I think that quite some people have tried it and it seems to work quite well so give it a try yourself. (And we would love to hear your comments after )

Regards,
Stefan

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi brianjd

the latest build has a platinum rating on the wine site: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... &iId=11392

I ran the installer in Ubuntu 8.10 and it called the wine API automagically and runs OK. I can do markup and most features work fine. There is a slight issue with the reproduction of the mouse pointer transparency but it is quite functional. Using the Gnome desktop environment and wine I can even drag and drop files from Naultilus, Dolphin and Konqueror file browsers (I have the appropriate KDE packages for this KDE installed as I LOVE Konqueror) into the viewer so I'm quite pleased with that.

Firefox will successfully call PDF-XChange Viewer as the default applixcation but as yet I've not managed to get it to actually open the file directly, it needs to be opened from within PDF-XChange either via the file dialogue or drag and drop as mentioned above.

What distribution are you using? I'd be interested to hear your feedback.

[brianjd]

Hey guys. Thanks for the reply. I'm using the 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope distribution of Ubuntu Linux. I'm running it as a VM via Sun's Virtual Box 3.0.2 on my Vista-32.

I'm having issues in Linux with drivers for peripherals...so I'm just going to stick with a Linux VM and do my .pdf reading in Vista. There's a really nice seamless windowing mode in the Virtual Box. So, I really don't need to install Xchange Viewer via WINE. If I do I'll report back

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

brianjd,

We would really like to hear your comments if/when you try it as all input is important to us, especially in areas that are not so deeply explored

Cheers,
Stefan

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

For sure I'm always interested in how users use the products. I must confess myself to never having tried to set up the print driver - I just use the Viewer for markup and Tools for manipulation. Has anyone actually tried to get the print driver interfaced through wine?

[mkengel]

I am using your reader with Ubuntu 8.10/Wine and most things work well but
a) I cannot use the links under help to automatically open a browser and connect to the support forum or the homepage - nothing happens;
b) the fonts used for the menus look bad (can I choose which fonts to use ?);
c) it seems as if I cannot copy text from some of the files (I will investigate this when I am booting next time Windows).

[timmorn]

To open the a file directly with the viewer running with wine, make a bash script like this:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

QUICKPARLOCATION="C:\\Programme\\Tracker Software\\PDF-XChange Viewer\\PDF Viewer\\PDFXCview.exe"
PARAM=`winepath -w "$*"`
wine "$QUICKPARLOCATION" "$PARAM"
exit 0

Replace the "QUICKPARLOCATION" with the path on your computer to the viewer. C:\ starts in my installation in "/home/user/.wine/drive_c/" if you have problems finding it.

Place this file for example with the name PDF_Xchange_Starter under /home/user/bin/. Then for example in dolphin or firefox you open the file with this script.

This is working here for dolphin, konqueror. For firefox only when i open the pdf out of Zotero. If i open a pdf from the web the viewer starts but it loads no document. If someone has a solution for this i would be happy.

But at all: Please give us PDF-XChange Viewer in Linux! I and many many students would buy it without waiting a second. I know it is hard, but i also worked on a program which runs in windows, linux and Mac... it is possible today!

Timmorn

[Lzcat - Tracker Supp]

Yes, in theory it is possible to write a program for Win/Mac/Linux platform, but this will makecode too complex and time consuming (at least for now for our team). Viewer was never designed to be a cross-platform project for many reasons (and complexity and money were not only reasons), and I'm affaid that it will become native for Windows only even after several major version updates.

And the reasons are largely the same - complexity of cross-platform programing (user interface and all features for developers) a smaller marketing opportunity - when all is said and done - we are not a charitable concern or open source project ...

We understand your point, hope you understand ours

[ugradedeveloper]

Based on my own past experience as a software developer working on a cross-platform application, I can say that such development is more difficult and costly than most people would guess. I have written about this at some length in these forums in the past, click here if you would like to read my comments:

https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 78&p=29321

Lewis