Evince vs Xpdf
June 07, 2026 | Author: Maria Lin
Evince and Xpdf are both free, open-source Linux programs for viewing PDF books and documents. They support multi-page navigation, text search, page zooming and opening protected PDF files.
However, Evince has a more modern GTK graphical interface (it is actually part of the GNOME visual environment). For example, it supports tabs and a sidebar, has a presentation mode, supports annotations and bookmarks. Evince can open not only PDFs, but also DjVu, PostScript and other formats.
Xpdf has a minimalist interface, but it uses very few system resources and starts quickly, making it often used on older or slower computers. The program has its own PDF rendering engine and a set of command-line PDF utilities.
However, Evince has a more modern GTK graphical interface (it is actually part of the GNOME visual environment). For example, it supports tabs and a sidebar, has a presentation mode, supports annotations and bookmarks. Evince can open not only PDFs, but also DjVu, PostScript and other formats.
Xpdf has a minimalist interface, but it uses very few system resources and starts quickly, making it often used on older or slower computers. The program has its own PDF rendering engine and a set of command-line PDF utilities.
