I'm looking for a free OSX based PDF reader
January 28, 2016 9:13 PM   Subscribe

I'm really not up for paying for Acrobat and just need a simple PDF reader for my macbook air. Something that will open a PDF as well as search the document. Got a suggestion? Thanks HIve!

I'm really not up for paying for Acrobat and just need a simple PDF reader for my macbook air. Something that will open a PDF as well as search the document. Got a suggestion? Thanks HIve!
posted by citybuddha to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)
 
Is there some reason that Preview (the app already included in OS X) isn't an option for you?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:19 PM on January 28, 2016 [18 favorites]


And isn't acrobat reader free?
posted by devinemissk at 9:23 PM on January 28, 2016 [6 favorites]


Skim is nice, but Preview is fine too.
posted by meijusa at 9:34 PM on January 28, 2016


I love Skim PDF. It's one of my most used apps of all on my laptop, and an integral part of my research / reading / highlighting / writing workflow. It allows you to create highlights (and notes), then later export your highlighted passages and notes as text. I only wish it were available for iPad too.
posted by incandescentman at 9:52 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


The built-in Apple app Preview is actually a pretty nice PDF reader. It should already be on your computer.
posted by ryanrs at 10:22 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, Safari reads pdfs.
posted by SpacemanRed at 12:33 AM on January 29, 2016


Firefox has a built-in PDF reader which I find does a better job than either Acrobat or Preview.
posted by Lanark at 1:38 AM on January 29, 2016


Apple Preview is okay, but absolute hell on forms. Filled-in forms from Preview appear blank in other viewers.

I detest Chrome's built-in PDF viewer, but mercifully Mozilla's PDF.js runs as an add-on. Get it here: PDF Viewer.

I also find myself using GSView (“a user friendly viewer for Postscript, PDF, XPS, EPUB, CBZ, JPEG, and PNG”) from time to time. It has useful export options.
posted by scruss at 4:27 AM on January 29, 2016


To work around the problem where filled-in forms in OSX Preview appear as blank in other viewers, what you need to do is to print it to PDF instead of saving it to PDF. It worked in a series of forms that my wife (OSX) had to send to me (Evince on Ubuntu).
posted by kandinski at 6:29 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


PDFpen is really good for editing and signing PDFs.
posted by flif at 1:11 AM on January 30, 2016


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