Found this tonight..Free PDF Reader Alternative

[zektor]

http://www.bravaviewer.com/reader.htm

I have been looking forever to an alternative to Adobe's reader, and to
using non-freeware GSView. This viewer is great! It's got some nice
features and is pretty quick. No need for Adobe Acrobat Reader or
Ghostscript to be installed either. Just install Bravo and view your PDF's.
ANybody else know of other PDF readers that take this approach? (IE: Free,
single install apps not relying on GS or Acrobat)

-zektor

 

[john stamatakis]

http://www.bravaviewer.com/reader.htm

I have been looking forever to an alternative to Adobe's reader, and to
using non-freeware GSView. This viewer is great! It's got some nice
features and is pretty quick. No need for Adobe Acrobat Reader or
Ghostscript to be installed either. Just install Bravo and view your
PDF's.
ANybody else know of other PDF readers that take this approach? (IE: Free,
single install apps not relying on GS or Acrobat)

-zektor

Foxit PDF Reader (582 KB, no install)
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

 

[MightyKitten]

http://www.bravaviewer.com/reader.htm

I have been looking forever to an alternative to Adobe's reader, and
to using non-freeware GSView. This viewer is great! It's got some nice
features and is pretty quick. No need for Adobe Acrobat Reader or
Ghostscript to be installed either. Just install Bravo and view your
PDF's. ANybody else know of other PDF readers that take this
approach? (IE: Free, single install apps not relying on GS or Acrobat)

-zektor

A quick Review:


What is it?
Brava! Reader is software of Informative Grapics (IGC)
the software can display both PDF and TIFF files.
The software is free to use for both private as commercial use.
The download is about 10 MB (9.527.536 bytes to be exact)

Classification:
Peronally, I found the software good enough to classify it as freeware,
though real purists could call it NAG-ware.
The reader is a stand alon product without menu of function restrictions.
At some points the documentation and the splashscreen refer to the other
(paid) products of the company. By the way, i found the splash screen not
intrusive (it is a simple document loaded at start-up, and unloaded as soon
as you choose to open an other document. If you open the program using a
tiff or pdf this document is not shown at all.

Very Important: Speed!
When loading the application, it is not as fast as Foxit PDF reader, but not
that much slower.It will beat the Acrobat Reader with the plugins disabled
with ease.

Features and functions
Brava! Reader is quite sober in its menu, though it has all (what I call)
basic functions:
- You can search tekst (it is in the upper right corner, but not in the
menu)
- Browse to previous and next pages (bottem left, including a select page
feature)
- Zoom in/Zoom out, Zoom to fit, and an additional on screen magnification

Features
- save parts as jpg image
- Go to the next readable document (slideshow effect)
- Rotate the document in steps of 90 degrees
- showing different layers
- change background color of document (white/gray/black)
There are some other features, but I'm not sure yet what they do.

Intergration:
Brava! Reader isn't into hostile file extention take over, so f you want it
to be the default viewer, you wil have to alter it yourself. (Rightclick a
pfd or tiff file >> "open with" >> "Choose Program" >> Browse to "C:\program
files\igc\brava! reader\BravaReader.exe" choose the option "always use this
program" >> "Ok" Button)

Conculsion:
Though it is to early to give a final verdict on this program, it is defetly
one I'm gonna try out for a while, with quite high expectations.
Especialy for those who have a lot of pdf's to read (and especialy, if you
need to open and close the reader program a lot: give this one a try!)


MightyKitten

--

http://www.it-hulp.nl/
http://fotoalbum.it-hulp.nl/

gmx.net is the mailserver of mightykitten
start subject with *ping* or the antispam monster will eat it.

 

[MightyKitten]

Foxit PDF Reader (582 KB, no install)
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

Yes, Foxit is smaller and a bit faster, but I found it to have ocational
problems with pictures, epecialy when not created with Adobe Acrobat or
their own software.
I did not found these problems eith the Brave! Reader.

Besides, Foxit- reader does not have the possibility to search text,
something that will come in quite handy if you have a lot of text.

MightyKitten

--

http://www.it-hulp.nl/
http://fotoalbum.it-hulp.nl/

gmx.net is the mailserver of mightykitten
start subject with *ping* or the antispam monster will eat it.

 

[Onno Tasler]

MightyKitten scribebat:

A quick Review:

Well, Mighty Kitten was quicker, but there is something I want to add:

- BravaViewer had some problems with certain fonts, resulting in
blackened areas instead of text. The text also looks sometimes less
sharp than in the Acrobat Reader.

- It loads a document page for page, which forces one to use two keys
to browse a document (one to switch pages, one to scroll within the
current page), but also improves the speed to display a single page,
especially on slow systems.

- BravaViewer seems not to have a PlugIn for reading PDFs in ones
browser. A plus for me, but others may want such a thing.

 

[Bill Rowland]

http://www.bravaviewer.com/reader.htm

I have been looking forever to an alternative to Adobe's reader, and to
using non-freeware GSView. This viewer is great! It's got some nice
features and is pretty quick. No need for Adobe Acrobat Reader or
Ghostscript to be installed either. Just install Bravo and view your PDF's.
ANybody else know of other PDF readers that take this approach? (IE: Free,
single install apps not relying on GS or Acrobat)

-zektor

I use this application:

http://www.cadkas.com/downengpdf5.php

It's the Free "light" version of their PDF Editor. Download size is
(approximately) 1 megabyte. You can view, modify and print PDF files.
You can modify PDF files, you just can't save them in the free
version. You can add and delete text and pictures and print them out.

File link:

http://www.cadkas.com/pdfreader!.exe ( 1,200~ KB

Bill

 

[zektor]

Foxit PDF Reader (582 KB, no install)
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

Thanks for the link. This is one I never heard of.. no install and works
great!

 

[MLC]

_zektor_, venerdì 27/ago/2004:

Thanks for the link. This is one I never heard of.. no install and works
great!

Yes, be aware however that it writes many values into the registry.
I don't like also that switching off "View - Advertising" is not remembered
the next time you start the program, and it keeps trying to connect with its
home page.