I’ve been using Firefox to view PDFs and it works fine. Recently though I wanted to try something more minimal with vim keybindings. Found two options: Zathura and tdf (terminal pdf viewer).

What I’m curious about is why someone would choose a TUI pdf viewer over a regular one (like Zathura). What are the actual advantages people find in practice. tdf mentions being fast but I wonder if that’s something you’d actually notice day to day?

Also I remember seeing screenshots where PDFs looked transparent or matched the terminal colors. Is that actually a feature of some of these viewers ? Maybe someone uses one here?

Tdf seems relatively popular with 1.4k github stars.

  • www-gem ( wwwgem@lemmy.ml ) 
    11·
    11 months ago

    Unless you have already made a decision and feel strong about Zathura, I’d like to mention Sioyek. It’s definitely an underrated pick for terminal PDF readers. It works just as well as Zathura, and can even go wayyyy beyond it.

      • hoppolito ( hoppolito@mander.xyz ) English
        1·
        10 months ago

        Sioyek really is amazing, especially for academic-style reading with a lot of jumping back and forth, and very customizable. I also heartily recommend it, but do be aware that there are some rough edges remaining.

        If you ever get stuck, there are a lot of additional tricks and workarounds for some of the quirks hidden in the project’s github issues. And if there’s a feature you feel sorely missing check out the main branch version instead of the latest official point release which is a couple years behind now (e.g. still missing integrated dual-page view which the development version has for close to 2 years now)

        • chasteinsect ( chasteinsect@programming.dev ) OP
          3·
          10 months ago

          Yeah I noticed the main AUR package was last updated in June 2024. Thought they abandoned it but the GitHub shows the last release was around the same time. Downloaded sioyek-git instead and it works great.

          I think I’m sticking with Sioyek. It checks enough boxes for what I need from a pdf viewer. Well documented, no performance issues, and it supports epub too.

          The command line tools, portals, ruler for reading, keyboard text selection, searchable highlights, easy file opening, marking. Really vim-like. Need to customize some keybinds but otherwise don’t see a reason to look elsewhere for now.

  • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ ( Sxan@piefed.zip ) English
    6·
    11 months ago

    Þe fewer GUI programs I have to use, þe better. Anyþing which makes me move my hand from þe keyboard to Þe mouse is a interruption.

    Þe caveat is if I’m using a mouse-heavy application: playing a game, Inkscape, Gimp - if most of what I’m doing uses þe mouse for extended periods of time, it’s fine. I just don’t want to be constantly moving my hand back and forth.

  • treadful ( treadful@lemmy.zip ) English
    6·
    11 months ago

    If you’re primary interface to your computer is a shell, then why not do this in a shell too? You likely already have your DE setup to handle shells. It fits within all your styling (no weridness between qt, gtk, etc).

    A better question might be, why run it in a GUI? What are you actually gaining from doing that?

  • monovergent ( monovergent@lemmy.ml ) 
    5·
    11 months ago

    The only time I find myself in line with CLI purists is when I need to SSH into a machine without X forwarding. Had no idea that there were terminal PDF viewers, but now I know if I ever need to consult a document remotely.

  • communism ( communism@lemmy.ml ) 
    4·
    11 months ago

    Also I remember seeing screenshots where PDFs looked transparent or matched the terminal colors. Is that actually a feature of some of these viewers ?

    Zathura lets you recolour and theme pdfs, yes. See zathurarc(5). You can set alpha using "rgba(r, g, b, a)" when setting a colour, e.g. set to 0.8 for 0.8 opacity.

  • kittenroar ( kittenroar@beehaw.org ) English
    2·
    10 months ago

    Huh, I mostly use apvlv and mupdf. They are command line binaries but they have a gui; I don’t really see a point in looking at a PDF with something other than a gui.