Family Historian User Group

I have been using Microsoft Reader to open pdfs, this has now been unilaterally discontinued by Microsoft and replaced with MS Edge. I am looking for alternatives.

Does anyone on the Forum use pdf readers they would recommend?

There are many options for Windows but, personally, I would avoid Adobe Reader at all costs! it's simply Bloatware.

Some options to consider (in no particular order):

- FoxitReader (Freeware Version)
- PDF Exchange Viewer/PDF Exchange Editor (Freeware Versions)
- Sumatra PDF (Open Source - Free to use)

A useful link for alternative software: https://alternativeto.net/browse/search?q=PDF

Mervyn

I use https://www.gonitro.com/ Nitro PDF Free version.

It has the ability to enter text into PDF forms.

I use PDF- XChange Editor which can be used for free if you don't need any of its advanced features. Besides all the standard features of most PDF readers, I really like the ability to extract images from PDFs into their own .jpg files and also the ability to OCR a PDF file so that it can be text searched. The latter is very helpful when you download a book from Google Books or Internet Archive that are not indexed for search.

Well, to be contrary, I use Acrobat Reader.

What you can do with Reader (though not always) is Add Comments to the .PDF, which can appear in a comments bar at the side of the document. These can be used to add the sort of navigation that I find useful, to the document and to record meta-data about the document as a whole, such as which Newspaper site I got this PDF from. You will not believe how many PDFs of newspapers I have that I can't cite properly because I didn't record where it came from because it was "obvious". Or maybe you will believe it. Not all .PDFs can be annotated with comments as some are protected.

I have no idea how many other .PDF readers have this facility, so your favourite alternative may.

Thank you for these replies. I will have a look these, in particular PDF Xchange Editor and Nitro PDF.

But what's actually wrong with PDF reader from MS Edge? Against all odds it works nice, I would even say it works very nice. But if to search for an alternative is the only option, then try some of PDFfiller

Welcome to the FHUG Shep.
I find the MS Edge PDF viewer is not as useful as other PDF viewers.

1. You have to be running Windows 10.
2. Need to know that right-click Show or hide toolbar reveals Table of Contents and Search controls.
3. There are none of the standard First/Next/Prev/Last Page movement controls, etc.
4. There are no additional tools for editing, adding comments, etc.

Legit, but since we're talking about basic pdf reader for Windows exactly (as David has mentioned, he was using Microsoft Reader before new feature came out), the Edge one has all the things required to fit these needs, except poor navigation but that's another issue

Although I use Windows 10, I am generally anti Microsoft, and like Adrian, I too use Adobe reader. It does what it says on the tin - reads PDF files quite nicely. Who better to read PDF’s than the originators

In addition to Adobe Reader, I have used:

Nitro PDF: https://www.gonitro.com/
Foxit Reader: https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-reader/
Sumatra PDF: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader.html

Since I print to PDF instead of paper most of the time, I like NitroPDF for its ease in appending pages to existing PDFs. If I'm on findmy past and capturing all of the transcriptions from a census household, I can print each person's transcription one after the other and save them all to the same PDF.

I haven't yet tried OCRing these because those features are usually in the pay versions, and no matter what solution you choose, that ends up being real money. I'd rather spend that on my genealogy bookshelf or a sub.

Jan,

Just an FYI... PDF-Xchange Editor does allow you to OCR PDF documents in the free version and also allows appending to existing PDF files. Also, once you have all the images in the PDF file you can use PDF-Xchange Editor to extract them all into a single or into separate .JPG images in one command.

Aye David,

I use a copy of Adobe Acrobat 8 'Standard'. Had it for a long time and don't feel a need to update it. Has all the bells and whistles for copying and pasting, OCR, markup of text etc. that I am ever going to need and then some.

I have used some of the "alternatives" and 'Acrobat Reader', all of which have either been annoyingly "intuitive", not manipulated the files as was expected or corrupted files.

Try an older 2nd hand licence, rather than the latest version and providing it is more recent than Adobe Acrobat version 5, it should do most things.

My regards, Bill

Thanks for all the contributions.

I am using PDF-XChange Editor, I like the OCR, extracting images and conversion options.

BillH wrote:Jan,

Just an FYI... PDF-Xchange Editor does allow you to OCR PDF documents in the free version and also allows appending to existing PDF files. Also, once you have all the images in the PDF file you can use PDF-Xchange Editor to extract them all into a single or into separate .JPG images in one command.

Thanks -- I'll give it a try.

I have used Nitro Pro for many years for pdfs. This is the full programme and simple to use. Much cheaper than Acrobat too.

Without a doubt, Adobe's Acrobat Reader. Download from Adobe's website: www.adobe.com

I have been collecting out-of-copyright directories and local histories from Google Books, The Internet Archive, and FamilySearch. Most of the time I choose PDFs to preserve the original page layouts.

The new version of Foxit has added a very useful feature:

Save the search results to PDF or CSV files for further reference.

https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-reade ... istory.php

Kindle will also accept PDFs, as will their Apple/PC/Android apps. This also means that you can also take your FH reports with you on your research visits!

Beware of Microsoft Edge in certain circumstances. I have very recently had to move to a new computer with Windows 10 installed (sigh – I was happy with Windows 7 and knew I had another two years before I had to move.). It was wanting me to open documents sent to me with something called TWINUI. It did not recognize the fact that I had already installed Acrobat Reader on the computer.
So I thought I would test what would happen if I sent myself a pdf file. I used Family Historian to make an All Relatives diagram in my main project which I converted to a pdf file and sent it to myself. It was opened in Microsoft Edge and as I did not want it I permanently deleted it. However I then found it had deleted not only that diagram but also my entire project plus all the other projects and all the other files that I had in my main Family Historian folder. The folder was empty.
Very thankfully I had done a backup the day before and was able to reinstall my family history data. But I now have lost confidence in Microsoft Edge and its behavior and I have no idea why it deleted so much.

Thanks for the heads-up. TWINUI stands for Tablet WINdows User Interface.
It is news to me, but after a Google Search that appears to be a well known Windows 8/10 bug affecting only certain PC makes.

Since it is a brand new PC covered by Consumer Rights Act 2015, take it back to the shop and get them to fix it.

I am not sure whether the delete effect you describe is part of the bug or not.

Anyway, the Google Search offers several solutions, and the simplest is to perform a System Restore to before the problem arose.
Other solutions involve running a script in Windows power shell.
See https://appuals.com/apps-getting-resetted-to-twinui/ that offers 5 solutions.
If you need further assistance then please ask.

Mike
Many thanks for your suggestions. I bought the computer direct from Dell (it is, interestingly, a tower, not a tablet) and am not keen on the palaver of sending it back particularly as it now has lots of stuff installed on it. One of my sons has given me a work-around for the pdf problem so I will wait to see if/where TWINUI resurrects itself in other contexts before I contemplate the more extensive correction programmes you suggest.
I am not sure why a System Restore would work as I assume that the problem is intrinsic to the particular model/brand that I bought together with what was transferred over from Windows 7/my old computer.

Even desktop/tower PC as well as laptops can be switched to/from Tablet mode via the Notification icon bottom right.
It often fools people when invoked by mistake, as many of the familiar Desktop mode features vanish.

In one posting the makes affected were named as ASUS, Fujitsu, and Acer, but not Dell?

Yes, System Restore would probably not work for your new PC as that history would not exist.
I mentioned it for others who may be following this thread with an older PC that may be able to be restored to an earlier setup.

Perhaps also worth noting Mike is that System Restore is, for some oddball reason, disabled on new installs of Windows 10 (certainly on my Win 10 Pro 64 Bit version), and although I regularly turn it back on, it gets disabled again when the "major" semi-annual updates occur!

I agree Brent that was the case with the earliest Windows 10 major updates, but in my experience the recent major updates have retained System Restore in the On state for my chosen drives.