reading adobe comments on pdf using OSS on F20

[Rolf Turner]

On 24/04/14 20:15, Klaus-Peter Schrage wrote:
> Am 23.04.2014 20:23, schrieb Chris Murphy:
>>
>> On Apr 22, 2014, at 2:51 PM, Ranjan Maitra
>> <maitra.mbox.ignored at inbox.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 21:52:52 +0200 Heinz Diehl <htd at fritha.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 22.04.2014, Klaus-Peter Schrage wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Okular lets you read, alter and add comments (I think, in the
>>>>> English version they are called "Reviews")
>>>>
>>>> I receive quite often .pdf files containing comments. Evince
>>>> reads them properly. Okular can be very slow sometimes, even
>>>> stuck in the middle of a large .pdf. I've never encountered that
>>>> with Evince.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks very much to everyone who answered. I use zathura (which did
>>> not have these feature, as does not xpdf) but I will try evince. I
>>> don't want to try out okular if I can help it because it will
>>> install 257 MB
>>
>> For what it's worth (trivia!), on OS X, the Adobe Acrobat Pro 10.1.9
>> version executable is 826MB. This does not include a bunch of shared
>> libraries located elsewhere in the file system. And by default it has
>> "open in 32-bit mode" checked; so part of the reason why it's so huge
>> is that this application is "universal" in that it contains both
>> 32-bit and 64-bit binaries; but still 32-bit is the default. I
>> haven't tried 64-bit, I'm going to guess that it's 32-bit by default
>> in order to support the array of 3rd party plugins with least
>> resistance.
>>
>>
>> Chris Murphy
>
> The ability to exchange annotated PDF files is essential for my everyday
> work as a professional book editor (now being retired and working
> freelance) and one of the main reasons to stick to Windows.
> So I tried to find out a bit further some options that I have in Linux:
>
> *Adobe Reader*: The latest version Adobe offers to Linux users is 9.5.5
> (btw, it's a rather huge download as well: 60 MB + 140 MB of
> dependencies). It reads all kinds of annotations, but I found no way to
> edit them or create new ones. There seems to be an option to activate a
> "Comment & Markup Toolbar", but that didn't work for me.
>
> *Evince*: Annotations are visible, but you can only open and read
> "sticky notes", no "highlighted text notes" or "strikethrough text
> notes", which are very important for my work. No possibility to edit
> anything.
>
> *Okular*: For me, it comes closer to what recent windows versions of the
> Adobe Reader have: It reads all kinds of annotations, you can edit them
> and you can add new ones which can be stored in a copy of the PDF file
> and which are read by Adobe Reader. But Okulars's annotation tools are
> different from those offered by Adobe Reader.
> As to the download size: It's a KDE application, so if you are on eg
> XFCE you have to download a bunch of additional libraries together with
> Okular.

For what it's worth I have for the past almost-a-year been using a 
commercial package called "PDF Studio" for my editing duties. (I am for 
my sins the Technical Editor of a statistics journal.)  PDF Studio is 
reasonably Linux-friendly --- has worked without problem so far --- and 
is not *too* brutally expensive; about $130 USD when I purchased it. 
Its syntax is substantially different from that of Adobe Reader (or so 
it seems) however.  That wasn't a problem for me since I'd never got 
used to using Adobe Reader for marking up, but it might be off-putting 
to those who are into the Adobe Reader way of doing things.

BTW I could never get Okular to work worth a damn.  This may be because 
(a) I am still using Fedora 17, and (b) I am using the Mate Desktop r.t.
KDE or even Gnome.

cheers,

Rolf Turner