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.
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Watch pdf files on remote server using ssh without gui
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.
TIL about tdf. Thanks! it really does seem fast.
… zathura seems interesting, it has support for plugins for different document types, but it seemed to open a PDF in secondary window (albeit on a desktop), whereas tdf allowed me to access the PDF inline in ghostty, which was great.
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.
i selfhost paperless ngx to access my pdfs and that is more than enough for what little i do with pdfs
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?
What’s wrong with “Evince”…? (that’s the only one which comes to mind right now…)
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 to0.8for 0.8 opacity.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.
