Firefox 106 will let you type directly into browser PDFs Mozilla has released the latest version of the leading FOSS browser for Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD and mobile OSes. Firefox version 106 isn't a big release, but it includes some welcome new features nonetheless, with notable improvements in PDF handling and cross-device sync. The built-in Javascript-based PDF viewer has …
This is excellent, for some reason some of the regulatory forms we have to complete each year are sent out in .pdf format, so then we have to find a way to edit them, or convert them to Word and back, and it's never perfect, something always ends up being misaligned or mangled. FF to the rescue!
The best ones are where they demand an electronic format with your unique signature handwritten on. When pressed, they explain that you are expected to print out their e-form, sign it and scan it back in for them. When I say "but I don't have a printer, what should I do instead?", they click a random ticked-off box and refuse to ever reply to your query.
So I break the terms of the small print and copy-paste a scanned signature from an old tax form or somewhere. My now illegal (and hence not valid, but they don't know that) document is processed quite happily.
I supposed "flatten the layers" is good defense-in-depth, but honestly, the businesses and government agencies I deal with can barely manage to create a PDF in the first place. I greatly doubt they'd be able to figure out I hadn't scanned a signed copy.
The whole thing is stupid where I live anyway, since digital signatures have Been A Thing in most US states since the UETA in 1999, and the ESIGN Act in 2000 made electronic signatures valid under Federal jurisdiction. Asking for a handwritten signature is unnecessary under US law, and an indication that the entity you're doing business with is incompetent.
who have made it their raison d'etre to ensure applications for PIP and DLA cannot under any circumstances be electronically assisted.
I know - I had knock on the door when I did it for a friend a couple of years back. Apparently only criminals use PDFs. Or so I was told.
Maybe now I can finally get rid of Foxit Reader, which sadly has been going downhill for some time. It used to be a nice alternative to Adobe's bloated monstrosity of an official app, but over time it's become more bloated itself and they keep trying to push their alternative to Acrobat and trick you into installing it if you don't pay close attention during the installation of updates or anything else. I don't begrudge them trying to make money to continue existing, but when you resort to underhanded methods like that, you tend to lose my respect and sympathy.
This change also came at just the right time for Firefox, since once Manifest v3 lands on Chromium browsers, Firefox will be able to offer this as an added incentive to switch.
[Author here]
I don't use Windows very often at all, but when I do, I use a FOSS reader called Sumatra PDF.
https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader
I switched from Foxit when it had some security issues and so on and I learned it was proprietary: freeware but not Free.
Sumatra works for the basics, and it's included on Ninite, so it's easy. One tick and done.
There is also Okular, which has a more sane user interface, even though it has its problems.
Like why does it push me towards the store and not update the normal app. Why does it (and a lot of other programs. Office jumps to mind.) think I want a list of files or anything at all when I open a piece of software like this.
"A touch on the basic side, but I so rarely need to annotate PDFs these days, it'll probably work fine."
I don't think I've needed to annotate a .pdf in the last 5 years or more. Anything I get in .pdf format is a final published document that needs to be un-editable. The rest of the time is usually something mangled in Word for which I'll use LibreOffice to work on. Most of what I do are schematics and drawings anyway so .pdf's are fine. There are tools for people to annotate Solidworks files that don't mess with the file itself and things I am documenting from Altium need to be in a fixed format that can't be changed by others.
We also use Sumatra, which is working great. No bloated functionality, just the basics and that's often enough.
We have little problems with a few printers, for some mysterious reasons a stripe appears when printing the PDF. Going with the older version of Sumatra (3.0) solves the problem.
== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==
"I don't use Windows very often at all, but when I do, I use a FOSS reader called Sumatra PDF.
https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader"
Thanks for the heads up ! I was after a non Adobe PDF reader for work since Edge is all I had until now and it ... sucks !
This reader, Sumatra, seems to be blazing fast and really good, I just tried it on a 300 pages PDF. Very impressive.
But alas is not and never will be available for Linux. On which I use Foxit when I need to add comments or annotations, since it does these will though it's a little slow to load.
I tried Sumatra some years ago and had problems with it (I no longer recall the details). But perhaps it's better now.
I agree that FoxIt, which used to be decent, now requires a hearty beating with the Settings stick after installation. Their PDF editor is similarly usable but immediately after installation the UI is like 70% toolbars and needs massive surgery to be looked at without suffering Lovecraftian breakdown, never mind actually using the thing.
Yep, next time I do a fresh install of Linux on my PC (when I build a new one, about every 5-6 years) I will be able to leave Adobe Reader off it. I only kept it around for fill-in forms, though recently I've seen some PDFs that didn't work on the older Reader available on Linux, so being able to do them directly in Firefox is a win!
Google has delayed Manifest v3 until 2024, I think they are scared about a lot of people fleeing when adblockers become much less useful. But that change was probably dictated to the Chrome team by the bigwigs who want more people to see the ads so they can keep revenue up...
>>Wait a couple of days and it will have magically changed to edge
or in the case of several machines here at work, IE11!
Explosion over there ---->
cos thats what Micorsoft deserve for resetting the default browser to their own discontinued software (even when Edge is available on the machine in question and the default, set by GPO, was Chrome)!
@RobThBay
"...declare itself as the default pdf viewer."
I hate that!
The first unwelcome feature I noticed was that you no longer have a choice whether you want to download or view the document; it either downloads it automatically or opens it in the case of pdf's. And only then can you download it if that is what you want to do.
Another annoyance is that blockers seem to have stopped working. Both Adblock +, A. nd UBlock Origen allows ads through - it is as if ads have become invisible as the status panel states there are no ads to block, whilst the ads are flickering annoyingly at me.
NoScript have also stopped working some time ago; if you right-click on it it does not give you the option to change from default (i.e . blocking everything) to temporary unblocking scripts I choose or allowinwing all scripts on the page or site.
> you no longer have a choice whether you want to download or view the document
Me again. Your installation is definitely broken, I just tested and I still get to chose if I want to view or download a linked PDF file (as set in Settings/General/Applications).
Exception are obviously websites which are hard coded to open PDFs whatever you say, but that's not Firefox's fault now is it.
Thanks, sanity returns afte rfinding the entry in 'settings'. Firefox really needs a formal user manual, but, unfortunately it would have to be re-written, cover to cover after each update. I worked for many years, in IT support and it continued to amaze me, why the dev's continued to add pointless changes to the system for no practical purpose, other than to give them something to do (and presumably continue to get paid). I was the administrator of an advanced CAD package, largely since I had thirty years experience as a draughtsman. The CAD package (Medusa) , was that rarity in software, being absolutely perfect from the word go. Cambrige University, the designers didn't sell the product, merely licensed it out. Our licencee, took it on themselves to add bells and whistles to the package, which no draughtsman would ever want or use. Sadly I never saw the most wished for advance, that of an A0 high definition monitor.
M4 it was. I'm surprised (or possibly, not) , that it hasn't gone up in issue for the past twenty years. As a draughtsman, it all went wrong, for me when they made a windows version. Not THE Windows, since it still ran on Solaris. The original, and best ran on a tablet, which held the instruction sheets, selected by a puck, rather like a passive mouse, with a joystick for navigation about the 'board'. A separate monitor and keyboard ran manual entry. In the 'windowed' version, everything was on the main monitor, where it severely restricted the amount of 'paper' space. A definitely nogo for a draughtsman. They did, too a free version, which at that time ran on Linux, my OS of choice. later they moved it to Windows, and I lost interest.
Firefox is far from perfect, but it's the best browser I've been able to find (since ~2001 or 2002, when it stopped being Phoenix and Firebird and reached 1.0). Haven't found a Chromium browser that is usable, though Vivaldi is giving it a lot of effort.
This is on Linux, of course. (What else is there?)
So if the PDF has security settings disallowing editing, commenting etc... will FF still allow it? Breaking the security PW is easy - Elcomsoft Advanced PDF Password Recovery (APDFPR) does it in a fraction of a second. Not so trivial to break a PW needed to open a PDF, mind you...
> PDF are well quite unsafe to start with
That's because they decided to add scripting to them, so you could package a nice little virus dropper with any otherwise legit PDF document. PDFs get quite secure again once you disable all those scripting and automatic virus downloading and installing features.
(Which is what currently worries me with Firefox: I don't see any settings for that new PDF reader. I don't know if it is currently able to run scripts and automatically go silently fetch stuff behind my back, but the law of increasing bloat says it soon will, and I need to be able to tell it not to.)
I'm starting to get increasingly annoyed with Firefox and finding I have to use Chrome.
A couple of versions back Firefox stopped me accessing HTTP sites on my local network, including my router, by ignoring the address I'd typed in and using the HTTPS version of the address instead - but that doesn't exist on some devices on the network. After changing several settings in about:config I can now get to some of them, but one or two are still being blocked by Firefox.
I just want a browser to go to the address I entered!
> A couple of versions back Firefox stopped me accessing HTTP sites on my local network, including my router, by ignoring the address I'd typed in and using the HTTPS version of the address instead
Do you have any privacy extensions installed? e.g. DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials will force https unless you add the URL to its excluded sites list.
Apparently I'm the only person in our company with Acrobat Pro (personal copy), so up to now it's been left up to me to modify any PDFs where the original Doc is mysteriously missing.
It's mostly contacts, that require somebody's name and signature inserted, and sometimes the dates or specific terms need changed.
Mere "annotation" doesn't cut it, as often stuff actually has to be removed.
It's a pain in the ass, tbh, but the corporate mindset has a pathological aversion to editable documents, yet otoh they keep passing me uneditable documents to edit.
I once took it on my own initiative to recreate a PDF from scratch in Word. That didn't go down well. I got a 10 minute lecture about policy compliance. They literally just want uneditable documents, and they want me to edit them.
Nice try, but then I'd be scolded for violating our "paperless office" environmental policy.
My job is basically, dig a hole, don't put your dirt in Boss #1's yard, then Boss #2 asks why I put dirt in his yard, and tells me to refill the hole, thus enraging Boss #1. But instead of a shovel and dirt, it's a PC and PDFs.
Explain to them that your software has been upgraded and now comes with a license fee for every document opened. Since the license is in your name, you have to pay the fee yourself via your personal account with them. From now on you will have to charge the company $17.23 for each document you open, and another $28.49 for every one you then edit and save. The upgrade is not reversible.
To the company shills - I deny that I am being even a tiny bit serious, this is just a joke. Like your company.
PDF. What's not to hate?
Implicit assumption is that your at a Desk/Laptop. Using PDF browser of choice. All looks the same? Well mostly the same because A4 and Letter aren't the same. Will be Letter on my screen but I may need to print it to A4 paper. Cue "PC Load Letter". Most software is getting smarter about this, but, not all. But there will still be a difference.
But what if you're not at a desk. But using a phone, or even a smaller tablet. One is reduced to endless bouts of scroll, zoom in, scroll a little, zoom out. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
99.99% of all PDF documents do not convert well, to say, an e-reader. Unwrapping lines is at best a guess - "Anything over x% of a full line width indicates end of paragraph".
And really, it is just useless if one wants to automate a workflow. But, seems to have been pressed in to service to fit this use case. Most people have no idea how to make editable fields. (See also para 1, above)
I just hates it.
When you view a webpage, the browser downloads the data and displays it to you. We consider that "viewing the page", even though the browser has downloaded the data to a local file or memory buffer first.
When using an external program to view a PDF, the browser downloads the PDF to disk, and launches the external program to open that downloaded PDF file. From the security perspective of the external program, the file is opened from a local file*. This can have security implications.
As I read it, Firefox now opens and renders the PDF like it would open and render a webpage. It's well aware that the file is not a local file, but a remote untrusted one, and can sandbox it from doing "naughty" things.
* I know, Windows does something about marking downloaded files as downloaded.
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