Adobe Reader

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Adobe ReaderENDNOTE 8.1+ is one of the essential tools to have when using Scribus. Although mostly a file viewer, it has some advanced features, which no other PDF viewer has: full support for JavaScript with a PDF and detailed information which is embedded in the PDF, but viewable only in Adobe Reader. In case you didn't know a PDF was scriptable, Scribus is unique in the Linux/UNIX world for its ability to create scriptable, interactive PDF forms.

For judging colors or correctness, the Mac Preview application, KPDF, Evince or any other PDF viewer are definitely not recommended – this is where Adobe Reader excels.

Adobe, of course, invented PostScript on which PDF is based and therefore has a commercial incentive to promote PDF on all platforms.

Hints for Scribus users:

It's strongly recommended to always use the latest Adobe Reader. Simply put, there is nothing else more capable of rendering PDF files correctly. Whatever your objections were to older versions (and there were some substantial ones, most notably on Linux), the later versions, especially those from 7.0.9 onwards, ameliorate the vast majority of them. It is far more stable, bug free, and loads quicker than earlier versions. On Linux it now has a modern look and feel. Versions after 7.0.9 also have direct support for CUPS, which allows many extra options for printing. Any PDF rendering issues with Scribus exported PDF in other viewers should be cross-checked with Adobe Reader before reporting bugs to the Scribus developers.

Some color mismatches may occur when viewing PDFs which have some kinds of transparency in PDF 1.4 files: unfortunately, whenever there is an extended graphics state parameter dictionary present which contains any transparency blend space operators, Adobe Reader 7.x or later switches into CMYK mode showing incorrect colors. The issue has been confirmed even with files not generated by Scribus.

Tweaking the Viewer Preferences

You will find that getting the preferences right in Adobe Reader is important to improve the reliability when working with Scribus. There are many settings in preferences in Reader 8, but the page display part is arguably the most important.


Image:Adobeprefs.png


Please spend the time to set up this dialog properly for optimized viewing of Scribus-created PDFs.

Ensure “Smooth Text”, “Smooth Line Art” and “Smooth Images” are enabled, since they apply a bit of anti-aliasing when viewing. In case you send someone a Scribus-created PDF and they complain that the text or gradients look like barbed wire or are “banded”, advise them to enable these settings which are commonly available in Adobe Reader at least since version 7, and regardless of platform.

There is another option called “Use Local Fonts”. What this choice does is enable Adobe Reader to use locally installed fonts which are named in the PDF, if it can find them in your font path, and it's recommended to disable this for use with Scribus. Why? As is often the case, PDFs you create in Scribus will be sent to other users. What you will want in most cases is a realistic view as it will be seen by anyone viewing this file. Thus, the only reliable way of ensuring your doc will view properly anywhere is to embed the fonts. You can also convert to outlines in the “Fonts” tab of the PDF export dialog to save file size. This is particularly important when you are using the Ghostscript fonts, like the Nimbus family. Adobe Reader does a poor job of simulating them with its own built-in multi-master fonts.

If you are creating Scribus files with transparency effects and export PDF 1.4 or higher (PDF 1.3 does not support transparency), you can enable “Show Transparency Grid”. Be aware, though, that your page will also be displayed as transparent, unless you created a shape with a different color as a page background, just as we did in the Quick Start Guide.


Image:AR-View.png


Next, looking at the Reader window above, there are 3 features which can be useful:

  • Thumbnails are useful for navigating – Scribus can optionally embed these in the PDF when exporting.
  • The corner triangle is a shortcut to File > Properties.
  • Notes which are non-printing can be used to give definitions or hints in a document. Most important is Document Information. Within Scribus File > Document Setup > Document Information there is a panel to enter author and title of the document. See Customizing Scribus for more informations.

ENDNOTE) http://www.adobe.com/products/reader

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