Table of contents
- Main menu
- File
- Edit
- View
- Tab
- Help
- Main view
- Mouse wheel
- Selections
- Links
- Bookmarks
- Auxiliary views
- Outline
- Meta-information
- Thumbnails
- Command-line options
- Configuration file
Introduction
qpdfview is a viewer for document files in the portable document format (PDF). It uses the Poppler library for rendering and the Qt toolkit for its interface. It supports displaying several documents in separate tabs in the same window.
- Open... Opens a dialogue to choose a file to open in the current tab. If there is no tab, the file is opened in a new tab.
- Open in new tab... Opens a dialogue to choose files to open in new tabs. New tabs are added to the right of the tab bar.
- Recently used This menu contains a list of the 5 most recently used files. Clicking on a file in the list opens it in the current tab or in a new tab if there is none.
- Refresh Reloads the file displayed in the current tab.
- Save copy... Opens a dialogue to save a copy of the file displayed in the current tab.
- Print... Opens a dialogue to print the file displayed in the current tab.
- Exit Closes all tabs and ends the program.
- Next/Previous/First/Last page Displays the next/previous/first/last page of the document in the current tab. Without effect if the last/first/first/last page of the document is currently displayed.
- Search... Opens a search toolbar at the bottom of the window. The search starts if characters have been entered into the search field and no further character is entered for two seconds. The search can be started manually by pressing the return key. If a search is currently running when a new search is started, the currently running search is aborted. If another tab is selected, the search is aborted and the search field is cleared. The search toolbar can be closed by pressing the escape key.
- Find previous/next If a search has been conducted, jumps to the previous/next occurrence of the search term in the document. Without effect, if no search has been conducted.
- Cancel search Cancels the currently running search and closes the search tool bar.
- Settings... Opens the settings dialogue.
- Auto-refresh Files are reloaded if they change on disk.
- External links External links are opened in the default browser if this is activated. (External links may be malicious, therefore this is deactivated by default.)
- Restore tabs If this is activated, the program will save the tabs and their properties in the configuration files on closing the window and restore them on restart. If this is deactivated, that information will be removed from the configuration files.
- Antialiasing Improves display quality at the cost of performance.
- Text antialiasing Improves text display quality at the cost of performance.
- Text hinting May improve text readability on computer displays.
- Maximum page cache size Sets the maximum size for the page cache for each tab to limit the memory usage of qpdfview. Be aware though that this is only a part of the overall memory usage of qpdfview. The page cache will be increased automatically and temporarily to hold at least three pages. This can lead to a large cache when using a large scale factor and a high-resolution computer display.
- Prefetch If this is activated, the program will try to render some pages that are not yet visible at the cost of increased page cache usage.
You can change the current page by entering the desired page into the text field in the edit toolbar and pressing the return key.
- Page layout options The first group of options defines way the pages are laid out. 'Two pages' or 'Two columns' displays two pages in a horizontal arrangement. 'One page'/'Two pages' displays only one page/two pages at a time while 'One Column'/'Two columns' displays all pages continuously.
- Scale mode options 'Fit to page width' ('Fit to page') determines the scale factor such that all pages fully fit into the view horizontally (and vertically).
- Zoom in Increases the scale factor by 10%.
- Zoom out Decreases the scale factor by 10%.
- Rotate left Rotates the pages left/counterclockwise.
- Rotate right Rotates the pages right/clockwise.
- Toolbars This menu contains a list of available toolbars for quick access to commonly used actions.
- Docks This menu contains a list of available docks for displaying supplementary information.
- Fullscreen Enables and disables the fullscreen mode, where the window is maximized and its titlebar is hidden.
- Presentation... Starts a presentation which can be ended by pressing F12 or escape. One page is displayed at a time. The home/end key is used to display the first/last page. Arrow keys right and down, space and the page down key jump to the next page. Arrow keys left and up, backspace and the page up key jump to the previous page.
You can change the scale factor by entering the desired percentage into the text field in the view toolbar and pressing the return key.
- Previous/Next tab Makes the previous/next tab the current tab.
- Close tab Closes the current tab.
- Close all tabs Closes all tabs.
- Close all tabs but current tab Closes all tabs except for the current tab.
This menu also contains a list of all tabs which can be made the current tab by clicking on them. You can close a tab by middle-clicking on it. The position of the tabbar can be changed using its context menu.
- Contents Displays this document.
- About Displays information about qpdfview.
You can skip to the next page using the left arrow key. You can skip to the previous page using the right arrow keys. You can go to the first/last page using the home/end key. You can skip one screen up/down using the page up/down key or backspace/space key.
- The mouse wheel can be used to scroll up and down.
- Holding ALT while using the mouse wheel scrolls left and right.
- Holding CTRL while using the mouse wheel scales the document.
- Holding SHIFT while using the mouse wheel rotates the document.
To copy texts or images, hold SHIFT, click and hold the left mouse button to drag a frame around the area to copy. Once the mouse button is released, a menu is displayed where you can select what to copy into the clipboard. The highlighted area can be reset by middle-clicking anywhere on the corresponding page.
Links are highlighted by red frames (which may be obscured by the formatting specified inside the document). Hovering over a link with the mouse shows a tooltip with the link destination. Left-clicking on a link shows the linked page in the current tab or opens the linked URL in the default browser (if this is enabled in the settings).
The context menu of the view contains a simple transient bookmarks mechanism. Bookmarks are specific to each tab and are lost when page layout, scaling or rotation is changed.
- Add entry Creates a bookmark at the current vertical position.
- Remove entries on current page Removes all bookmarks on the current page, i.e. the page whose number is displayed inside the toolbar.
- Go to previous/next entry Jumps to the vertical position of the nearest bookmark whose vertical position is above/below the current vertical position. If there is not previous/next bookmark, this will jump to the last/first bookmark.
- Clear list Removes all bookmarks.
The outline dock displays an overview of the contents of the document. A double click on an entry jumps to the respective vertical position.
The meta-information dock displays further information supplied by the document.
The thumbnail dock displays miniature versions of the pages. A double click on a thumbnail jumps to the respective page.
If an instance of qpdfview is started with the --unique option, later invocations using this option will activate this instance to open the specified files. Please refer to the manual page for a detailed description of the command-line options.
The configuration file is typically located at '~/.config/qpdfview/qpdfview.conf'. The toolbars are configured by setting the keys 'fileToolBar', 'editToolBar' and 'viewToolBar' in the section 'mainWindow'. The values are ordered comma-separated lists. The default (available) entries are:
- fileToolBar: openInNewTab,refresh (open,saveCopy,print),
- editToolBar: currentPage,numberOfPages,previousPage,nextPage (firstPage,lastPage,search),
- viewToolBar: scaleFactor,zoomIn,zoomOut (onePage,twoPages,oneColumn,twoColumns,fitToPage,fitToPageWidth,doNotScale,rotateLeft,rotateRight,fullscreen,presentation).
The size of the thumbnails is specified by setting the keys 'thumbnailWidth' and 'thumbnailHeight' in the section 'documentView'.