Some new document formats have recently gained popularity. The standard viewers they
require may not be available in the base system. We will see how to install them in this
section.
This section covers these applications:
Many documents are now distributed as PDF files, which stands for ``Portable Document
Format''. One of the recommended viewers for these types of files is Acrobat Reader, released by
Adobe for Linux. As FreeBSD can run Linux binaries, it is also available for FreeBSD.
To install the Acrobat Reader 5 package, do:
# pkg_add -r acroread5
As usual, if the package is not available or you want the latest version, you can use
the ports collection as well:
# cd /usr/ports/print/acroread5
# make install clean
Note: Acrobat Reader is available in several different
versions. At this time of writing, there are: print/acroread (version 3.0.2), print/acroread4 (version 4.0.5), and print/acroread5 (version 5.0.6). They may not all have been
packaged for your version of FreeBSD. The ports collection will always contain the latest
versions.
gv is a PostScript® and
PDF viewer. It is originally based on ghostview but it has a
nicer look thanks to the Xaw3d library. It is fast and its
interface is clean. gv has many features like orientation,
paper size, scale, or antialias. Almost any operation can be done either from the
keyboard or the mouse.
To install gv as a package, do:
# pkg_add -r gv
If you cannot get the package, you can use the ports collection:
# cd /usr/ports/print/gv
# make install clean
If you want a small FreeBSD PDF viewer, Xpdf is a
light-weight and efficient viewer. It requires very few resources and is very stable. It
uses the standard X fonts and does not require Motif® or any other X toolkit.
To install the Xpdf package, issue this command:
# pkg_add -r xpdf
If the package is not available or you prefer to use the ports collection, do:
# cd /usr/ports/graphics/xpdf
# make install clean
Once the installation is complete, you can launch Xpdf and
use the right mouse button to activate the menu.
GQview is an image manager. You can view a file with a
single click, launch an external editor, get thumbnail previews, and much more. It also
features a slideshow mode and some basic file operations. You can manage image
collections and easily find duplicates. GQview can do full
screen viewing and supports internationalization.
If you want to install the GQview package, do:
# pkg_add -r gqview
If the package is not available or you prefer to use the ports collection, do:
# cd /usr/ports/graphics/gqview
# make install clean
