A PDF viewer for PDF with large vector images on linux?

Question

I need to view some PDF with large vector images (they can be really large) on linux (I am on Debian Wheesy). I need also to zoom on theses images with more than 400% (infinite zoom would be great, more than 800% would be good). I have tested several PDF viewers but they have the following problems :

Evince : cannot zoom more than four or five increase of zoom ("+"), the image is so big that it doesn't even display the percentage of zoom.

Okular : cannot display the image (all is blank) after a certain degree of zoom (~70%-80%).

muPDF (last version from git and debian repository version) : cannot open a too large image. Error message : "Interger overflow" (last version) or "Out of memory" (debian version).

Xara LX : cannot import PDF in the open source version. Convert PDF to SVG for importing into Xara LX does not fit my needs because my PDF contains several pages.

Inkscape : can open PDF and its zoom is powerful, but it's not a PDF viewer so the navigation is slow.

Xournal : cannot open correctly the image (all is black).

Do you know others open source PDF viewer that could open and zoom on PDF with large vector images ?

Thank you in advance,

try Foxit-Reader: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/desklinux/ — Mohsin Javed Cheema, Oct 23 '13 at 11:56
A hint for Okular is that if you refresh the page at larger zooms (F5 key) then it will redraw and you will see the image. — krumpelstiltskin, Mar 30 '15 at 09:00
Evince by default has quite a small cache, resulting in a fairly low maximum zoom. Increasing this cache can result in much higher zoom percentages on large documents. See this article (specifically the `gsettings` commands) for info: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/721217 — paulhauner, Feb 28 '17 at 22:55

Silveri · Answer 1 · 2018-08-01T08:56:46.240

Both Ubuntu's Evince reader and Linux Mint's Xreader will increase their max level of zoom if their cache size is increased. You can use gsettings to view or change these settings.

Evince reader's zoom can be increased with:

gsettings set org.gnome.Evince page-cache-size 200

Xreader with:

gsettings set org.x.reader page-cache-size 200

In both cases you'll need to select an appropriate cache size in megabytes. You can first look at what your current setting's value is by instead using the gsettings get command.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 30 '15 at 09:01

xpdf is the open-source viewer that works efficiently on very large vector images. The only drawback is that it has an old interface and is not well integrated into gnome; I have to start it from the commandline as it doesn't show up in my Nautilus "open with" list.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 22 '17 at 21:33

qpdfview

For example Evince failed in opening the map (size is 197MB) attached to this paper

EVANS, David JA; EWERTOWSKI, Marek; ORTON, Chris. Eiríksjökull plateau icefield landsystem, Iceland. Journal of Maps, 2016, 12.5: 747-756.

on the other hand qpdfview succeded (but no more of 500% zoom).

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 24 '13 at 11:07

0

Try Foxit-Reader: http://foxitsoftware.com/pdf/desklinux

Only drawback is not being open-source but it works just fine.

answered Oct 24 '13 at 11:07

Mohsin Javed Cheema

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A PDF viewer for PDF with large vector images on linux?

4 Answers4