Use BePDF

If you would like to read PDF documents under Haiku, the native application to use is BePDF.

Let's review how to install and use it.

Installation

The installation is quite simple.

Just open the HaikuDepot application, search for bepdf and proceed with the installation:

We are ready to go :)

Usage

The first time the application is opened, the below window in displayed with a starting document:

Let's open a PDF document like the one below :

This document is talking about bash scripting :)

If you would like to see the page numbers, click on the "show page list" icon :

The page numbers will be added on the left :

You can navigate the document by moving to the previous or next page :

You can also go backward / forward 10 pages :

It's also possible to display the document in fullscreen mode :

There's a nice history list feature, meaning you can go backward/forward in your navigation's history with the blue icons :

In case the PDF document has not been correctly created, you can also rotate its display:

You can of course zoom in / zoom out, if you need to see it more in details :

For PDF documents with huge text content, the search feature can be useful :

The only disappointment is the way the find string is displayed.

As you can see in the below document, the blue outline is not easy to identify :

What about doing a copy/paste of some content ?

By using the Ctrl+mouse click in the document, you can define a text zone :

Then do a Opt+C to copy the selected content.

Open the Pe editor and proceed with a paste via Opt+V :

Great !

The text has been copied from the PDF document : )

BePDF proposes also annotations feature with the pencil icon :

You can add several types of annotation on the document :

And indicate a text with the popup menu "Properties" :

Then fill the text content about your annotation.

Today, this feature is not working correctly because : 

• The display of the content is not easy to read (the text content above is hard to read)
• The save as of a PDF document is not saving the annotations

So I'm not sure if someone could use it for the moment.

What about learning more about the BePDF's features ?

For that you can click on the "Help>Show help" menu :

And then read the nice PDF documentation :

The mouse controls can be interesting to understand :

Alternative to BePDF

What about using another software to read your PDF documents ?

I've tried to drag and drop a PDF document to WebPositive, unfortunately it's not working :

If you copy/paste the URL to Iceweasel, the result will be better :)

I advice Iceweasel as an alternative to BePDF.

The display of the PDF documents is really good, especially the clickable sections of the table of contents (highlighted when the mouse is over) :

Selecting a text and doing a copy of the selection is really easy :

And the display of the found strings is better than BePDF :

Any comment you would like to share about your preferred application to display PDF ?

Let put it below :)