Evince vs Xpdf

Last updated: July 09, 2023
Evince and Xpdf are two popular document viewers available for Linux and Unix-like systems, each with its own set of features and characteristics. One key difference between the two lies in their user interfaces and design philosophy. Evince, which is commonly used as the default document viewer in the GNOME desktop environment, offers a modern and intuitive interface with a focus on simplicity and ease of use. It provides a clean and straightforward user experience, allowing users to view and navigate documents with ease. Xpdf, on the other hand, has a more minimalistic interface, reflecting its lightweight nature. While it may lack some of the visual polish of Evince, Xpdf's simplicity makes it a lightweight and efficient option for users who prioritize speed and resource efficiency.

Another notable difference between Evince and Xpdf is their supported file formats. Evince is primarily designed to handle popular document formats such as PDF, PostScript, and DjVu. It provides a rich set of features for viewing and interacting with these formats, including zooming, searching, and bookmarking. Evince also supports additional document types through the use of external plugins. Xpdf, on the other hand, is primarily focused on PDF viewing. It provides a streamlined and efficient PDF viewing experience, optimized for speed and rendering accuracy. While it may lack support for other document formats, Xpdf excels in its performance and reliability for handling PDF files.

In terms of additional features, Evince offers more advanced functionality compared to Xpdf. Evince includes support for features such as annotation, highlighting, and document signing. It also provides options for exporting documents to different file formats and printing. Xpdf, on the other hand, is more focused on core PDF viewing capabilities and does not include advanced features like annotations. Xpdf's simplicity and lightweight nature make it a suitable choice for users who require a lightweight and fast PDF viewer without the need for additional advanced functionality.
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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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Xpdf
Xpdf is an open source viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. (These are also sometimes also called 'Acrobat' files, from the name of Adobe's PDF software.) The Xpdf project also includes a PDF text extractor, PDF-to-PostScript converter, and various other utilities.