[ale] switching to foxit for pdf viewing with or without adobe as backup

Fri Mar 22 13:34:25 EDT 2013

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

If evince isn't sophisticated enough then there is always Okra(? not
sure of name just that it starts with O and is a native KDE app). Down
side is that if you're not using KDE or any KDE apps already it will
install a boat load of KDE related files. When I was using it along
with Mafia$haft Font$ (I'm ducking) I felt it blew off the door on
ADOBE. For now Evince is good enough for me as a standalone and I do
have FoxIt as I do believe it is already built in to Firefox 19.0.2 as
I didn't have to install it when I bumped up to Fedora 18.

On 03/22/2013 11:37 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
> Hi JD,
> 
> My experience with evince on Ubuntu, which is what I believe loads
> when you start document viewer, is that it's abilities for viewing
> complex pdf's and controlling page layout and zoom and switching
> are far inferior to Adobe Reader.  At one point, I had Adobe Reader
> installed in Ubuntu because it just works better.  Although, now, I
> might reverse that.  The feature set of Foxit seems far more
> comparable to Adobe, while still being more secure, they say.  I
> haven't tried to install it on linux yet, so I don't know if there
> is a ppa.  Regarding flash, I find that indispensable.  There are
> tons of sites that won't work without it.  However, I only allow it
> to run on sites I trust using noscript, as you suggested.  My
> banking sites, as it turns out, are happy enough using javascript.
> They don't have to have flash.  That ruby on rails video you posted
> in another thread is Youtube.  Gotta have flash for that.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ron
> 
> 
> JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:
> 
>> Why not use native PDF tools on Linux? * xournal for
>> editing/markups (to embed the edits, save-as PDF) * evince if
>> searching (xournal doesn't have search for some reason)
>> 
>> Sorry, I'm just confused.  If it doesn't have a PPA or it isn't
>> in the distro repository, I don't want it on my system.  Getting
>> programs directly from a ZIP or tgz or even a DEB is soooooo
>> 1980s.   Package manager have freed us from the droll work of
>> software updates from 50 different places.
>> 
>> Hopefully everyone knows to avoid all programs made by Adobe by
>> this point too, though I will admit to using Flash in an
>> extremely selective manner. It is not enabled anywhere by
>> default.
>> 
>> 
>> On 03/22/2013 10:01 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> (Ignore the fact that some program names are not capitalized.
>>> I just
>> didn't
>>> want to mess with it.)
>>> 
>>> Because of all the security problems with Adobe reader, I
>>> decided to
>> switch to
>>> foxit for pdf viewing rather than adobe, but I wanted to keep
>>> adobe
>> as a backup
>>> for more complex pdf files.  This sounds easy, but it's not as
>>> easy
>> as you might
>>> think to get it working right.  Also, the foxit installer does
>>> not
>> set up
>>> everything correctly and securely in this case.  I thought I'd
>>> share
>> my
>>> experience in case anyone is wanting to do the same thing.  For
>>> my
>> purposes, I
>>> prefer not to view pdf's in the browser, but to have the reader
>>> pop
>> up.  I have
>>> the configuration set for this.
>>> 
>>> (Warning, for security reasons, if you do have Adobe Reader on
>>> your
>> system, and
>>> you intend to keep it, go into its preferences and turn off
>> javascript before
>>> doing the following procedures, since Adobe reader could start
>>> up by
>> mistake.
>>> This post tells how to configure Foxit, not Adobe.  There are
>>> a
>> number of other
>>> settings to configure Adobe reader for safety which are not
>> documented here.  I
>>> can list those if anyone has a need for it.)
>>> 
>>> What I did here is on Windows, but almost everything applies to
>>> Linux
>> too, but
>>> some of the procedures would be different.  Some of the Linux
>>> gurus
>> can tell how
>>> to do those things that are different.
>>> 
>>> NOTE: YOU MUST DO ALL THESE PROCEDURES, OTHER THAN FOXIT
>> INSTALLATION, ON EACH
>>> USER LOGIN.
>>> 
>>> You can get the foxit reader here:
>>> 
>>> http://www.foxitsoftware.com/
>>> 
>>> Install it according to the normal procedures for your system.
>>> 
>>> You are NOT done, at this point.  You just think you are.
>>> 
>>> Start the foxit reader.
>>> 
>>> Go into the preferences screen and check / set the following
>>> tabs /
>> settings:
>>> 
>>> File Associations page: Click the make default PDF viewer
>>> button (just to double
>> check), click OK
>>> CHECK always perform check when starting foxit reader UNCHECK
>>> (per your preference) display pdf in browser
>>> 
>>> General page: (not security related, but are my preferences) 
>>> UNCHECK make hand tool select text UNCHECK auto hide status
>>> bar UNCHECK show start page
>>> 
>>> JavaScript page: (note this defaults to a LESS secure setting) 
>>> UNCHECK enable javascript actions
>>> 
>>> Trust Manager page: (this will default to what you set during
>> install)
>>> CHECK enable safe reading mode
>>> 
>>> Updater page: (these are my preferences) SELECT automatically
>>> install updates
>>> 
>> _______________________________________________ Ale mailing list 
>> Ale at ale.org http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS,
>> ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at 
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and
> K-9 Mail. Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the
> touch screen.
> 
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might
> want to call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from
> alternate energy mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new
> email messages very quickly.)
> 
> Ron Frazier 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message. linuxdude AT
> techstarship.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ Ale mailing list 
> Ale at ale.org http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS,
> ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.13 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
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=Q8Bd
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----