Sumatra PDF

Sumatra PDF

Sumatra PDF 0.6 running on Windows XP
Design by	Krzysztof Kowalczyk
Developed by	Krzysztof Kowalczyk
Initial release	1 June 2006
Latest release	0.8.1 / May 27, 2008
Written in	C++
OS	Microsoft Windows
Available in	Multilingual
Genre	PDF reader
License	GNU General Public License
Website	Project home page

Sumatra PDF, also known simply as Sumatra, is a free, open source, light-weight PDF reader for Microsoft Windows, written by Krzysztof Kowalczyk.^[1]

1 Features
2 Development
3 Name and artwork
4 Critical reception
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Features

Sumatra has a minimalistic design, with its simplicity attained at the expense of extensive features.

Sumatra is composed from two parts:

MuPDF - PDF rendering library
Poppler - PDF library

Sumatra was designed for portable use, as it consists of one single file with no external dependencies, making it usable from an external USB drive.^[2] This classifies it as a portable application.^[1] As is characteristic of many portable applications, Sumatra takes up little disk space.^[1] It has a 1.1 MB setup file, compared to Adobe Reader's 22.4 MB, for Windows XP and Vista.^[3]

Sumatra does not lock the PDF file. Without closing the PDF file a user can recompile the text document and generate a new PDF file and then press the R key to refresh the PDF document.

Sumatra 0.5 and earlier versions can print PDFs that have disallowed printing. This feature has been removed from the newer versions.

Hyperlinks that are embedded in PDF documents are not active in Sumatra.^[4]

Sumatra is multilingual, with 20 community-contributed translations.^[5]

Development

The first version of Sumatra was designated 0.1 and was released on 1 June 2006.^[6]

As it was initially designed when Windows XP was the current version of Windows, Sumatra has some incompatibility issues with earlier versions of Windows, including Windows 95, 98, Me and 2000.^[7]

While there is no source code package by the author, the source code can be downloaded via its Subversion development repository.^[8]^[9]

Name and artwork

The author has indicated that the choice of the name "Sumatra" is not a tribute to the Sumatra island or coffee, stating that there is no particular reasoning behind the name.^[10]

The graphics design of Sumatra is a tribute to the cover of the Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.^[11]

Critical reception

Sumatra has attracted acclaim for its speed and simplicity,^[12] its keyboard shortcuts^[13] and its open source development.^[14]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Krzysztof Kowalczyk. "Sumatra PDF - A PDF Viewer for Windows". Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
^ Alan Henry (2007-08-11). "Sumatra PDF Viewer: Fast and Simple PDF Reading". AppScout.
^ Adobe Systems Incorporated (2008). "Adobe Reader". Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
^ Hunt, Adam (2008-02-19). "A Lightweight & Open Source PDF Reader". Open Source Windows?. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
^ Krzysztof Kowalczyk. "Translators". Sumatra PDF - A PDF Viewer for Windows. Retrieved on 2007-10-29.
^ Kowalczyk, Krzysztof (May 2008). "Sumatra PDF - A PDF Viewer for Windows - Version history". Retrieved on 2008-07-14.
^ Tobias F.; Krzysztof Kowalczyk (2007-09-24). "Missing Menubar". Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2007-10-27.
^ Mohammad shafie; Krzysztof Kowalczyk, TJS (2007-07-03). "Source Code". Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
^ Paul; Krzysztof Kowalczyk (2007-12-18). "I can't dowload the source". Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
^ Adam Hunt; Krzysztof Kowalczyk (2008-02-21). "Name of Application". Sumatra PDF Viewer forum. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
^ Lifehacker (September 2007). "Open PDF's in a flash with Sumatra". Retrieved on 2008-06-22.
^ Anders Ingeman Rasmussen (2008). "Sumatra PDF 0.8". Open Source Alternatives. Retrieved on 2008-02-21. “Sumatra PDF is a fairly young project aiming to create a small, simple and fast PDF viewer. It main features are showing PDFs and starting up really fast - and it does both just perfectly.”
^ Gina Trapani (2007-08-09). "Open PDF's in a flash with Sumatra". Lifehacker. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
^ Gina Trapani (2007-08-09). "Open PDF's in a flash with Sumatra". Lifehacker. Retrieved on 2008-02-21. “The Sumatra PDF Viewer is a tiny open source portable reader that opens PDF's in the blink of an eye. Bloat and startup time is a major drawback to Adobe Reader, so we fled to the faster arms of Foxit Reader long ago. However, at 850KB, Sumatra is way slimmer than FoxIt.”