New Update Sumatra PDF Reader

Updated daily ;)
That may helps to improve this software, although this amount of bug fixes should be better fixed in beta-versions before published as stable. However, I have no major bugs so far, I will keep using the portable version of Sumatra PDF.
 
After a very long time, SumatraPDF looks like again on active development:

Version history​


3.5 pre-release

SumatraPDF pre-release builds are for testing. Please do not redistribute. They might have bugs not present in official releases.

Latest SumatraPDF pre-release build version 15391, built on 2023-03-29, commit 987bb6a8c58bd39fe3e54edc53fecff1db22fc69

64-bit version:
installer:SumatraPDF-prerel-64-install.exe
portable version:SumatraPDF-prerel-64.exe
 
After a very long time, SumatraPDF looks like again on active development:


All lovely and simple, low system requirements etc. But when I used it it had a problem opening files with a password on. I had various documents from my bank in PDF form with a password and Sumatra supposedly nice because lightweight couldn't manage to open.

I had to install Adobe Acrobat Reader which is thick compared to Sumatra PDF - but opens all PDFs
 
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Is it possible they were scripted or with links, etc? Sumatra avoids adding features, which would add vulnerabilities. I have PDFs from bank and work and they open, also tested with this.

I don't know. In my case, it's like this.
I deal with something at my bank. I get a PDF file in the mail. And a text message to my phone the password to extract.
When I had the Sumatra PDF then after entering the password the document opened but there was nothing inside.
I installed Acrobat Reader and after doing so I got a "paperclip" on the left hand side to access another PDF document that I was interested in. Maybe it's the encryption ?

Password Protect PDF - Encrypt your PDF online safely

You are not afraid to use such tools when opening documents with private content ?

It is a shame that Sumatra PDF cannot do this.
This is what I miss about it :(
 
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Do you know another application than Adobe Acrobat Reader to read such files ? (encrypted) so that it is free and does not take up 700 MB on the disk. For me it is too much to read PDF files but for today it works for me.
Using the online version not acceptable
 
Do you know another application than Adobe Acrobat Reader to read such files ? (encrypted) so that it is free and does not take up 700 MB on the disk. For me it is too much to read PDF files but for today it works for me.
Using the online version not acceptable

We are natively embedding the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine into the Microsoft Edge built-in PDF reader, with a release scheduled in March 2023.

For Chrome, and other browsers:
 

Sumatra PDF 3.5​

Version history

3.5 (2023-10-23)​

  • Arm 64-bit builds
  • dark mode (menu Settings / Theme or Ctrl + K command Next theme) you can use i (invert colors) to match the background / text color of rendered PDF document. Due to technical limitations, it doesn’t work well with images
  • i (invert colors) is remembered in settings
  • CmdEditAnnotation select annotation under cursor and open annotation edit window
  • rename CmdShowCursorPosition => CmdToggleCursorPosition
  • add Annotations [ FreeTextColor, FreeTextSize, FreeTextBorderWidth ] settings
  • ability to move annotations. Ctrl + click to select annotation and them move via drag & drop
  • add CmdCommandPaletteOnlyTabs command with Alt + K shortcut
  • exit full screen / presentation modes via double click with left mouse button
  • ability to drag out a tab to open it in new window
  • support opening .avif images (including inside .cbz/,cbr files)
  • respect image orientation exif metadata in .jpeg and .png images
  • support Adobe Reader syntax for opening files /A "page=<pageno>#nameddest=<dest>search=<string>
  • add Next Tab / Prev Tab commands with Ctrl + PageUp / Ctrl + PageDown shortcuts
  • keep Home tab open; add NoHomeTab advanced option to d`isable that
  • add context menu to tabs
  • bugfix: handle files we can’t open in next file in folder / prev file in folder commands
  • command palette: when search starts with >, only show commands, not files (like in Visual Studio Code)
  • add reopen last closed command (Ctrl + Shift + T, like in web browsers)
  • add clear history command
  • can send commands via DDE
  • added CmdOpenWithExplorer, CmdOpenWithDirectoryOpus, CmdOpenWithTotalCommander, CmdOpenWithDoubleCommander commands
  • enable CmdCloseOtherTabs, CmdCloseTabsToTheRight commands from command palette
  • recognize PgUp / PgDown and a few more in keyboard shortcuts
  • add -disable-auto-rotation cmd-line print option
Source: Version history - Sumatra PDF

Download: Sumatra PDF reader download page
 
I used Sumatra in stead of Adobe in the past, but why would you need a PDF reader nowadays when browsers (with strong sandboxing and site permission restrictions) can also read PDFs?

In Windows11 Microsoft forces Edge upon people. Edge has the strongest sandbox (AppContainer) and security (SuperDupermode). I don't use Edge as the browser on my wife's laptop, but use it with all site permissions on deny as PDF reader (and you can harden Edge with registry tweaks using GPO settings, eg enable PDFSecureMode).

Alternative (to Adobe) PDF readers are (on Windows) a blast from the past IMO.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I used Sumatra in stead of Adobe in the past, but why would you need a PDF reader nowadays when browsers (with strong sandboxing and site permission restrictions) can also read PDFs?

In Windows11 Microsoft forces Edge upon people. Edge has the strongest sandbox (AppContainer) and security (SuperDupermode). I don't use Edge as the browser on my wife's laptop, but use it with all site permissions on deny as PDF reader (and you can harden Edge with registry tweaks using GPO settings, eg enable PDFSecureMode).

Alternative (to Adobe) PDF readers are (on Windows) a blast from the past IMO.
1st because not everyone does use Edge as default browser. 2nd average users doesn't harden their browsers to be stronger protected, specially for Edge via GPO.
3rd Adobe Acrobat Reader has a very large files size and some users does prefer a more lightweight software even as portable version like Sumatra PDF Reader.
 
1st because not everyone does use Edge as default browser. 2nd average users doesn't harden their browsers to be stronger protected, specially for Edge via GPO.
3rd Adobe Acrobat Reader has a very large files size and some users does prefer a more lightweight software even as portable version like Sumatra PDF Reader.
Chrome with its sandbox, probably is also a safer alternative to Sumatra. Edge was just an example.
 
Sumatra PDF 3.6.0

3.6 (2026-03-17)​

  • add DisableAntiAlias advanced setting and CmdToggleAntiAlias command
  • add CmdShowAnnotations, CmdHideAnnotations, CmdToggleShowAnnotations commands for temporarily hiding / showing annotations
  • add CmdToggleInverseSearch to temporarily disable mouse click invoking tex inverse search
  • add bgcolor, opacity, textsize, borderWidth arguments to CmdCreateAnnot* commands
  • add Annotations.FreeTextBackgroundColor and Annotations.FreeTextOpacity advanced settings
  • sort thumbnails on home page by most recently used date. Set advanced setting HomePageSortByFrequentlyRead = true to revert to pre-3.6 behavior of sorting by frequency of use.
  • support brotli compression in PDF files
  • in Command Palette, if you start search with : we show everything (like in 3.5)
  • in Command Palette, when viewing opened files history (#), you can press Delete to remove the entry from history
  • improved zooming:
    • zooming with pinch touch screen gesture or with ctrl + scroll wheel now zooms around the mouse position and does continuous zoom levels. Used to zoom around top-left corner and progress fixed zoom levels shown in menu
  • include manual (F1 to launch browser with documentation)
  • add LazyLoading advanced setting, defaults to true. When restoring a session lazy loading delays loading a file until its tab is selected. Makes SumatraPDF startup faster.
  • new commands in command palette (Ctrl + K):
    • CmdCloseAllTabs : “Close All Tabs”
    • CmdCloseTabsToTheLeft : “Close Tabs To The Left”
    • CmdDeleteFile: “Delete File”
    • CmdToggleFrequentlyRead : “Toggle Frequently Read”
    • CmdToggleLinks : “Toggle Show Links”
    • CmdInvokeInverseSearch
    • CmdMoveTabRight (Ctrl + Shift + PageUp), CmdMoveTabLeft (Ctrl + Shift + PageDown) to move tabs left / right, like in Chrome
  • add ability to provide arguments to some commands when creating bindings in Shortcuts:
    • CmdCreateAnnot* commands take a color argument, openedit to automatically open edit annotations window when creating an annotation, copytoclipboard to copy selection to clipboard and setcontent to set contents of annotation to selection
    • CmdScrollDown, CmdScrollUp : integer argument, how many lines to scroll
    • CmdGoToNextPage, CmdGoToPrevPage : integer argument, how many pages to advance
    • CmdNextTabSmart, CmdPrevTabSmart (Smart Tab Switch), shortcut: Ctrl + Tab, Ctrl + Shift + Tab
  • added UIFontSize advanced setting
  • removed TreeFontWeightOffset advanced setting
  • increase number of thumbnails on home page from 10 => 30
  • add ShowLinks advanced setting and “Toggle Show Links” (CmdToggleLinks) for command palette
  • default ReuseInstance setting to true
  • added Key arg to ExternalViewers advanced setting (keyboard shortcut)
  • added Key arg to SelectionHandlers advanced setting (keyboard shortcut)
  • improved scrolling with mouse wheel and touch gestures
  • theming improvements
  • go back to opening settings file with default .txt editor (notepad most likely)
  • don’t exit fullscreen on double-click. must double-click in upper-right corner
  • when opening via double-click, if Ctrl is pressed will always open in new tab (vs. activating existing tab)
  • register for handling .webp files
  • bug fix: Del should not delete an annotation if editing content
  • bug fix: re-enable tree view full row select
  • change: CmdCreateAnnotHighlight etc. no longer copies selection to clipboard by default. To get that behavior back, you can use copytoclipboard argument instead.
  • change: Ctrl + Tab is now CmdNextTabSmart, was CmdNextTab. Ctrl + Shift + Tab is now CmdPrevTabSmart, was CmdPrevTab. You can re-bind it if you prefer old behavior
  • CmdCommandPalette takes optional mode argument: @ for tab selection, # for selecting from file history and &gt; for commands.
  • command palette no longer shows combined tabs/file history/commands. CmdCommandPalette only shows commands. Because of that removed CmdCommandPaletteNoFiles because now `CmdCommandPalette behaves like it
  • removed CmdCommandPaletteOnlyTabs, replaced by CmdCommandPaletteNoFiles @
  • Ctrl + Shift + K no longer active, use Ctrl + K. You can restore this shortcut by binding it to CmdCommandPalette &gt; command.
  • add Name field for shortcuts. If given, the command will show up in Command Palette (Ctrl + K)
  • closing a current tab now behaves like in Chrome: selects next tab (to the right). We used to select previously active tab, but that’s unpredictable and we prefer to align SumatraPDF behavior with other popular apps.
  • swapped key bindings: i is now CmdTogglePageInfo, I is CmdInvertColors. Several people were confused by accidentally typing i to invert colors, is less likely to type it accidentally
  • allow creating custom themes in advanced settings in Themes section. See docs.
  • improve scrolling with middle click drag #4529
  • make built-in keyboard shortcuts work on non-us keyboards (cyrillic , hebrew etc.)
  • add CmdDuplicateInNewTab (Open Current Document In New Tab) command

 

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