Better pdf Reader Needed
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Right now Vivaldi makes use of Chrome’s own built in pdf reader, which is simply completely inadequate in my opinion. Both Chrome and Firefox have very feature impoverished pdf viewers, requiring users to make use of replacement extensions that often come with lots of unnecessary baggage or that charge monthly subscriptions.
Sadly, Microsoft Edge currently is crushing Firefox, Chrome, and Vivaldi with its default pdf viewer. How? By supporting the most basic and fundamental pdf features there’s really no excuse not to support: annotations.
Pdfs support videos, audio, file attachments, custom metadata, custom javascript, embedded index files for advanced search, even 3D animation. Highlighting and notes are some of the most basic features the format allows, and have been supported by the pdf format for many years. So why are tech industry leaders seemingly going backwards here?
Vivaldi’s built-in pdf reader should not only support annotations, but integrate that support with its existing notes and screen capture features.
It should should be possible to have all highlights sync with Vivaldi’s existing notes feature. Each pdf would have its own folder, each highlighted section would ne saved in a note. And it should be possible as well to link these annotations to their location in the original document, append highlighted text to user notes about the text in question, automatically attach an image capture of the document itself, and include metadata or content in the note regarding the source, based on the metadata of the pdf.
Different colors of highlighter should also permit organization of notes into corresponding sub-folders.
Various services right now offer much superior functionality. The webapp Paperpile, which is a reference manager for academic papers with its own web based pdf viewer allows users to export annotations from pdfs as plain text, rich text, json, markdown, html, and pdf.
Obsidian has plugins which can extract highlights from pdfs as a separate markdown files, and even convert entire pdfs directly to markdown.
Calibre and Jabref support embedding of custom xml metadata into pdfs.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
There are many superior features for pdfs available on other apps, so I really think Vivaldi should at the bare minimum support basic annotations at the very least.
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I agree. I would personally specifically like the ability to change the zoom level in the PDF viewer. However, the best solution, IMO, is simply to allow us to define an external reader such as PDF Exchange.
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+1, the PDF viewer needs these features
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I agree, the current PDF viewer is sluggish and slow and lacks a lot fundamental features. It keeps the text rendered while scrolling. Edge pixelates the text while scrolling to achieve a faster experience while scrolling which makes it fast.
For how feature-rich vivaldi is and for the "power" users, it has to have a better PDF viewer that i would like to see.
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I don't see this ever happening, as the PDF plugin is not developed by Vivaldi. Developing a full PDF editor is a huge task. PDF-XChange Editor is free for the most important features, comments, highlighting, etc.
However, that is only helpful to Windows users. Linux and Mac users will need to find different solutions.
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@amind0 said in Better pdf Reader Needed:
I agree, the current PDF viewer is sluggish and slow and lacks a lot fundamental features. It keeps the text rendered while scrolling. Edge pixelates the text while scrolling to achieve a faster experience while scrolling which makes it fast. For how feature-rich vivaldi is and for the "power" users, it has to have a better PDF viewer that i would like to see.
But aren't you guys better off with a third party PDF reader? The more functions you put into the browser, the more security risks. I believe a browser's main job is to render webpages, not PDF's.
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@RasheedHolland
If other browsers did it, vivaldi can do it too, thats what i think, it has already so many fratures, like mail client, pdf client could be helpful as well. -
@amind0 said in Better pdf Reader Needed:
@RasheedHolland
If other browsers did it, vivaldi can do it too, thats what i think, it has already so many fratures, like mail client, pdf client could be helpful as well.I guess this is true, but I was never fan of adding a calendar and email function to Vivaldi, they put so much time into this stuff, that they forgot to improve the browser on certain points. I personally don't need to edit PDF's and I open them with Sumatra PDF Reader.
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I would like to see a better pdf reader, too. At least, I would like to see that the touch screen works, and then, if possible, annotations.
I enjoy reading pdf in Edge. I think Vivaldi could also catch up and give users a better experience. It would be a piece of big news to me...
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I know it's a difficult thing to code, but Vivaldi would get closer to be the perfect browser ever. @Pesala thank you for sharing "PDF-XChange Editor", I will use it until Vivaldi make a better pdf reader.
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@br1elz You will have to use PDF-XChange Editor for the foreseeable future, as the Vivaldi Team lacks the resources to write their own PDF plugin. For now, at least, most of the essential feature can be used for free.
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@edsonneto English only in this forum section please.
Totally agree! It is nonsense that such a useful resource is missing in a resource-focused browser! It is so basic that I am surprised that Edge is the only one to take this step.
Microsoft have far more staff to do the coding. The Vivaldi Team currently has just 27 developers to fix all bugs and security issues and add features across multiple platforms including Linux, Mac, Android, and iOS.
Blog • Vivaldi Review • Server Status
Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486 • Snapshot 7.2.3621.48 (64-bit) -
Would MuPDF be a good starting place?
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What about including the one from Firefox (pdf.js if I'm not mistaken)? Is that feasible?
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This post is deleted! -
Hello all,
i would also like to point out that while we love Vivaldi, indeed it lacks the PDF Viewer it has.
It would make it super functional to add:
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Pencil icon so we can quickly sign, draw something on a PDF we open with Vivaldi.
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The ability to upload an image to PDF and save it with that image included.
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A highlight tool, so we can save it with the highlight included!
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@leonidasfs said in Better pdf Reader Needed:
Hello all,
i would also like to point out that while we love Vivaldi, indeed it lacks the PDF Viewer it has.
It would make it super functional to add:
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Pencil icon so we can quickly sign, draw something on a PDF we open with Vivaldi.
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The ability to upload an image to PDF and save it with that image included.
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A highlight tool, so we can save it with the highlight included!
It will not happen.
Vivaldi is a Chromium fork, it will come with the PDF viewer of Chromium.
They do not have the resources to re-code Chromium's PDF Reader and patch it 2-3 times every month to apply their changes, in every new Chromium release.
There is also a chance Chromium to have major changes in the PDF reader and have to re-code the changes from scratch.
The only browser which is capable to patch that much Chromium is Edge because Microsoft is a trillion dollar company with a huge team behind Edge.
No other Chromium fork has the manpower for that many patches in every Chromium release.
The best place to ask for changes in Chromium's PDF Reader is here. -
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Tip
- Install PDF-XChange Editor (the free version is adequate for most users).
- Enable Internal PDF Viewer for Vivaldi at Settings, Webpages
- Associated PDF Files with PDF-XChange Editor
- Open PDF files in Vivaldi by clicking the link to the PDF on any web page
- Disable Internal PDF Viewer in Settings Webpages
- Right-click a link to a PDF and select Open from the download dialog to open the PDF for annotation in PDF-XChange Editor
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For anyone who is not satisfied with the other workarounds recommended in this thread, I would warmly recommend setting up this chrome extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/pdf-reader/ieepebpjnkhaiioojkepfniodjmjjihl
It's just pdf.js for chrome; so basically the pdf reader firefox uses. It has basic functionality like adding text and highlights
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Vivaldi can learn from microsoft edge PDF reader
