Sumatra PDF

{{Short description|Free and open-source document viewer for Windows}}

{{infobox software

| name = Sumatra PDF

| logo = Sumatra PDF logo.svg

| logo size = 96px

| screenshot = Sumatra PDF 3-5-2 (64-bit) 6 Windows 10.png

| caption = Sumatra PDF 3.5.2 (64-bit) on Windows 10

| author = Krzysztof Kowalczyk

| developer = Krzysztof Kowalczyk, Simon Bünzli and others

| released = {{Start date and age|2006|06|01|df=yes}}

| latest release version = {{wikidata|property|edit|reference|P348}}

| latest release date = {{start date and age|{{wikidata|qualifier|P348|P577}}}}

| latest preview version = 3.6.16779

| latest preview date = {{Start date and age|2024|08|23|df=yes}}

| programming language = C, C++

| operating system = Windows Vista and newer

| size = 7.1 MB (32-bit), 7.9 MB (64-bit)

| language = Multilingual

| genre = Document viewer

| license = GNU General Public License v3

| website = {{URL|https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/|sumatrapdfreader.org}}

}}

Sumatra PDF is a free and open-source document viewer that supports many document formats including: Portable Document Format (PDF), Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM), DjVu, EPUB, FictionBook (FB2), MOBI, PRC, Open XML Paper Specification (OpenXPS, OXPS, XPS), and Comic Book Archive file (CB7, CBR, CBT, CBZ).{{cite web |url=http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/ |title=Sumatra PDF – A PDF Viewer for Windows |access-date=2008-02-19 |author=Krzysztof Kowalczyk}} If Ghostscript is installed, it supports PostScript files. It is developed exclusively for Microsoft Windows.

Features

Sumatra has a minimalist design, with its simplicity attained at the cost of extensive features. For rendering PDFs, it uses the MuPDF library.{{cite web|url=http://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/SumatraPDF-04-released.html |title=SumatraPDF 0.4 released |access-date=Feb 20, 2007 |last=Kowalczyk |first=Krzysztof |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120414233031/http://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/SumatraPDF-04-released.html |archive-date=14 April 2012}}

Sumatra was designed for portable use, as it consists of one file with no external dependencies, making it usable from an external USB drive, needing no installation.{{cite web |url=http://www.appscout.com/2007/08/sumatra_pdf_viewer_fast_and_si.php |title=Sumatra PDF Viewer: Fast and Simple PDF Reading |first=Alan |last=Henry |date=2007-08-11 |publisher=AppScout |access-date=24 August 2007 |archive-date=22 July 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120722132239/http://appscout.pcmag.com/free-downloads/276748-sumatra-pdf-viewer-fast-and-simple-pdf-reading |url-status=dead }} This classifies it as a portable application to read PDF, XPS, DjVu, CHM, eBooks (ePub, FictionBook, Mobi PDB and TCR), Comic Book (CBZ, CBR, CBT, and CB7) and image formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, PNG, TGA, and WebP).{{cite web|url=https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/docs/Supported-document-formats |title=Supported document formats |access-date=Sep 16, 2023}} Sumatra can also support PostScript, PJL, and HEIF formats via external software.

As is characteristic of many portable applications, Sumatra uses little disk space. In 2009, Sumatra 1.0 had a 1.21 MB setup file,{{cite web|url = http://www.oldapps.com/sumatra_pdf.php|title = Sumatra PDF – Old Version of Sumatra PDF|access-date = 15 November 2014|last =oldapps.com |date = 19 October 2014}} compared to Adobe Reader 9.5's 32 MB.{{cite web |url=http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/ |title=Adobe Reader |access-date=2009-10-15 |author=Adobe Systems Incorporated |author-link=Adobe Systems |year=2009}} In January, 2017, the latest version of SumatraPDF, 3.1.2, had a single 6.1 Mb executable file; in comparison, Adobe Reader XI used 320 MB of disk space.{{cite web |url=http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html |title=Adobe Reader XI / Tech specs |access-date=2012-10-16 |author=Adobe Systems Incorporated |author-link=Adobe Systems |year=2012}}

The PDF format's use restrictions were implemented in Sumatra 0.6, preventing users from printing or copying from documents that the document author restricts, a form of digital rights management. Kowalczyk stated, "I decided that [Sumatra] will honor PDF creator's wishes."{{cite web|url = https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/issues/detail?id=461|title = Issue 461: Copy to clipboard not allowed in protected files|access-date = 2012-09-13|last = Kowalczyk|first = Krzysztof|date=February 2009}}{{cite web|url = https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/issues/detail?id=2003|title = Issue 2003: printing fails (denied) due to PDF "Denied Permissions"|access-date = 2012-09-13|last = Kowalczyk|first = Krzysztof|date=September 2012}}{{cite web|url = https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/issues/detail?id=1927|title = Issue 1927: DRM-like features make working with documents difficult|access-date = 2013-05-25|last = Kowalczyk|first = Krzysztof|date=September 2012}} Other open-source readers like Okular and Evince make this optional, and Debian patches software to remove these restrictions, in accord with its principles of interoperability and re-use.{{cite web|url=https://lwn.net/Articles/335415/|title=Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions|website=LWN.net|access-date=2025-03-21}}

Through version 1.1, printing was achieved by rasterizing each PDF page to a bitmap. This resulted in very large spool files and slow printing.{{cite web|url = http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/poppler/2008-May/003783.html|title = poppler Printing with poppler on Windows|access-date = 2009-11-29|last = Johnson|first = Adrian|date=May 2008}}{{cite web|url = http://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/issues/detail?id=378|title = Issue 378: mass memory needed for printing any pdf document |access-date = 2009-11-29|last = Kowalczyk |first = Krzysztof |date=October 2008}}

Since version 0.9.1, hyperlinks embedded in PDF documents have been supported.{{cite web|url = https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/news.html|title = Sumatra PDF – A PDF Viewer for Windows – Version history|access-date = 2017-05-31|last = Kowalczyk|first = Krzysztof|date=May 2008}}

Sumatra is multilingual, with 69 community-contributed translations.{{cite web |url=http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/translators.html |title=Translators |access-date=2007-10-29 |first=Krzysztof|last=Kowalczyk |publisher=Sumatra PDF – A PDF Viewer for Windows}}

Sumatra supports SyncTeX, a bidirectional method to synchronize TeX source and PDF output produced by pdfTeX or XeTeX.

Development

Sumatra PDF is written mainly by two contributors: Krzysztof Kowalczyk and Simon Bünzli.{{cite web|url=https://www.ohloh.net/p/4623/contributors |title=The Sumatra PDF Open Source Project on Ohloh: Contributors Listing Page |publisher=Ohloh.net |date=2011-09-27 |access-date=2014-01-17}} The source code is developed in two programming languages, mostly in C, with some components in C++. The source code is provided with support for Microsoft Visual Studio.{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/downloads/detail?name=SumatraPDF-2.4-source.zip |title=SumatraPDF-2.4-source.zip – sumatrapdf – SumatraPDF 2.4 source code – PDF, EPUB, MOBI, CHM, XPS, DjVu, CBZ and CBR viewer for Windows |publisher=Google Project Hosting |date=2013-10-02 |access-date=2014-01-17}}

As it was first designed when Windows XP was the current version of Windows, Sumatra initially had some incompatibilities with earlier versions of Windows. Support for Windows 95, 98 and ME has since been removed.{{cite web |url=http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/download-free-pdf-viewer.html |title=Download SumatraPDF |access-date=2011-02-07 |author=Krzysztof Kowalczyk}}

Initially, Kowalczyk did not release a 64-bit version of Sumatra, indicating that while it might offer slightly more speed and available memory, he believed at that time that it would greatly add to user confusion and that the benefits would not outweigh the potential costs.{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/wiki/WhyNo64bitBuilds |title=WhyNo64bitBuilds – sumatrapdf – Why we don't provide 64bit builds. – PDF, CHM, XPS, DjVu, CBZ and CBR viewer for Windows – Google Project Hosting |date=2012-02-23 |access-date=2012-09-13}} However, some users requested 64-bit builds of Sumatra and other developers had compiled unofficial 64-bit builds{{cite web |url=http://xhmikosr.1f0.de/sumatrapdf/ |title=XhmikosR's Builds |publisher=Xhmikosr.1f0.de |date=2014-01-14 |access-date=2014-02-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140208235437/http://xhmikosr.1f0.de/sumatrapdf/ |archive-date=8 February 2014 |df=dmy-all }} which loaded documents faster than the 32-bit builds. However, the official builds' developer had requested that unofficial builds not bear the 'Sumatra' name.{{cite web|url=http://forums.fofou.org/sumatrapdf/topic?id=3184038&comments=4 |title=Sumatra PDF Reader forum |publisher=Forums.fofou.org |access-date=2014-02-12}} In October 2015, an official 64-bit version of Sumatra was released.{{cite web|url=https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/190 |title=Provide 64bit builds |publisher=GitHub |access-date=2015-10-31}}

The Sumatra source code was originally hosted on Google Code. Due to US export legal restrictions, it was unavailable "in countries on the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control sanction list, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria."{{cite web|url=http://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/ |title=sumatrapdf – PDF, CHM, XPS, DjVu, CBZ and CBR viewer for Windows – Google Project Hosting |access-date=2012-08-13}}{{cite web|url=https://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html |title=Google Project Hosting – Google Code |access-date=2012-08-13}} The source code is currently hosted on GitHub.{{cite web|url=https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf |title=GitHub – sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf: SumatraPDF reader |access-date=2016-08-28 |publisher=SumatraPDF Developers}}

History

The first version of Sumatra PDF, designated version 0.1, was based on Xpdf 0.2 and was released on 1 June 2006. It switched to Poppler from version 0.2. In version 0.4, it changed to MuPDF for more speed and better support for the Windows platform. Poppler remained as alternative engine for a time, and from version 0.6 to 0.8 it was automatically used to render pages that MuPDF failed to load. Poppler was removed in version 0.9, released on 10 August 2008.

In July 2009, Sumatra PDF changed its license from GNU GPLv2 to GNU GPLv3 to match the same license change on MuPDF.{{cite web|url=https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/commit/04d7b0dcf8bc78c4926b1719203e861b2d11bc7b|title=update the license to GPLv3, to match mupdf's license change|website=github.com|date=2009-07-03|access-date=2025-03-21}}

Since version 0.9.4, Sumatra supports the JPEG 2000 format.{{Citation needed|date=July 2015}}

Version 1.0 was released on 17 November 2009, after more than three years of cumulative development. Version 2.0 was released on 2 April 2012, over two years after the release of version 1.0.

In 2007, the first unofficial translations were released by Lars Wohlfahrt

{{cite web

| url = http://eviltux.de/index.php?art5gg=weiter&id=1183156773&archive=&start_from=&rub=1&

| title = Sumatra PDF German

| access-date = Jun 30, 2007

| author = Lars Wohlfahrt

}} before Sumatra PDF got official multi-language support.

In October 2015, version 3.1 introduced a 64-bit version, in addition to their original 32-bit version.{{cite web|url=http://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/news.html|title=Version history|access-date=2025-03-21}}

Name and artwork

File:Sumatra PDF Logo.png comic.]]

The author has indicated that the choice of the name "Sumatra" is not a tribute to the Island of Sumatra or coffee, stating that there is no particular reasoning behind the name.{{cite web |url=http://forums.fofou.org/sumatrapdf/topic?id=3392&comments=2 |title=Name of Application |access-date=21 February 2008 |first=Krzysztof|last=Kowalczyk |date=2008-02-21 |publisher=Sumatra PDF Viewer forum |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120303132633/http://forums.fofou.org/sumatrapdf/topic?id=3392&comments=2 |archive-date=3 March 2012}}

The graphics design of Sumatra is a tribute to the cover of the Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Critical reception

Sumatra has attracted acclaim for its speed and simplicity,{{cite web |url=http://www.osalt.com/sumatra-pdf |title=Sumatra PDF 0.8 |access-date=2008-02-21 |author=Anders Ingeman Rasmussen |year=2008 |publisher=Open Source Alternatives | quote = Sumatra PDF is a fairly young project aiming to create a small, simple and fast PDF viewer. It main features are showing PDFs and starting up really fast - and it does both just perfectly.}} for being portable,[http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/amazing-pdf-reader-portable-and-tiny.htm This Amazing PDF Reader Is Portable And Tiny] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401064501/https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/amazing-pdf-reader-portable-and-tiny.htm |date=1 April 2019 }} Submitted by Rob Schifreen on 21 July 2013 its keyboard shortcuts, and its open-source development.{{cite web |url=http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-windows-download/open-pdfs-in-a-flash-with-sumatra-287281.php |title=Open PDF's in a flash with Sumatra |access-date=2008-02-21 |first=Gina|last=Trapani |date=2007-08-09 |publisher=Lifehacker | quote=The Sumatra PDF Viewer is a tiny open source portable reader that opens PDF's in the blink of an eye. Bloat and startup time is a major drawback to Adobe Reader, so we fled to the faster arms of Foxit Reader long ago. However, at 850KB, Sumatra is way slimmer than FoxIt.}}

At one time the Free Software Foundation Europe recommended Sumatra PDF, but then removed its recommendation in February 2014, due to the presence of the non-freely licensed unrar code in Sumatra. As foundation representative Heiki Ojasild explained, "while they continue to make use of the non-free library, SumatraPDF cannot be recognised as Free Software."{{cite web|url = https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/source/browse/trunk/ext/unrar/license.txt |title = The source code of UnRAR utility is freeware |access-date = 6 March 2014|last = Roshal |first = Alexander L.|date = 9 October 2011}}{{cite web|url = https://code.google.com/p/sumatrapdf/|title = Sumatra PDF|access-date = 6 March 2014|last = Sumatra PDF|date = n.d.}}{{cite web|url = http://www.pdfreaders.org/|title = Get a Free Software PDF reader!|access-date = 6 March 2014|last = Free Software Foundation Europe|author-link = Free Software Foundation Europe|date = 28 February 2014 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140209030435/http://pdfreaders.org/ |archive-date = 9 February 2014}}{{cite web |url = https://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2014/03/05/pdfreaders-org-removal-of-sumatrapdf-due-to-use-of-non-free-code/ |title = PDFreaders.org: Removal of SumatraPDF due to inclusion of non-free code |access-date = 6 March 2014 |last = Ojasild |first = Heiki |date = 5 March 2014 |archive-date = 30 October 2014 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141030131108/http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2014/03/05/pdfreaders-org-removal-of-sumatrapdf-due-to-use-of-non-free-code/ |url-status = dead }} Unrar was eventually replaced with a free alternative in version 3.0, making it 100% free software.{{cite web|url = http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/news.html|title = Sumatra PDF – A PDF Viewer for Windows – Version history |access-date = 2014-10-21|last = Kowalczyk|first = Krzysztof|date=October 2014}}