Evince vs Okular

Last updated: July 09, 2023
Evince and Okular are two popular document viewers in the Linux environment, each with its own unique features and capabilities. One key difference between the two lies in their desktop environment integration. Evince is the default document viewer for the GNOME desktop environment, providing seamless integration with the overall GNOME ecosystem. It adheres to the GNOME design principles and integrates well with other GNOME applications, offering a consistent user experience. On the other hand, Okular is primarily associated with the KDE Plasma desktop environment, providing similar integration and consistency within the KDE ecosystem. Therefore, the choice between Evince and Okular often depends on the user's preferred desktop environment.

Another significant difference between Evince and Okular is their support for different file formats. Evince is primarily designed for viewing PDF documents, although it can handle other formats like PostScript, DjVu, and TIFF. It provides a clean and straightforward interface for navigating and viewing these formats. Okular, on the other hand, is a more versatile document viewer that supports a wide range of file formats, including PDF, EPUB, CHM, XPS, and more. Okular also offers additional features specific to certain formats, such as the ability to add annotations to PDFs or extract metadata from EPUB files. This broader format support makes Okular a preferred choice for users who need to handle various document types.

In terms of functionality, Okular tends to offer more advanced features compared to Evince. Okular provides robust annotation tools, allowing users to highlight, underline, and add notes to documents. It also offers features like bookmarking, text selection, and searching within documents. Additionally, Okular supports advanced options such as customizing the document layout, splitting pages, and adding custom stamps. While Evince provides basic viewing and navigation capabilities, Okular's feature set makes it a suitable choice for users who require more advanced document handling and interaction options.
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Evince
Evince is a document viewer for multiple document formats. The goal of evince is to replace the multiple document viewers that exist on the GNOME Desktop with a single simple application.
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Okular
Okular is a universal book viewer based on KPDF for KDE 4. This means Okular works on multiple platforms, including but not limited to Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, *BSD, etc. Okular combines the excellent functionalities of KPDF with the versatility of supporting different kind of documents, like PDF, Postscript, DjVu, CHM, XPS, ePub and others.