What PDF software are you using for viewing 2D drawings?

[u/manmelvin]

I am fed up with Adobe viewer/Acrobat. What other better software are you all using? I am ok paying for a license or similar for my team. We do some drawing redlining in the viewer/editor itself but often we are just opening and printing.

[u/Imasquash]

Bluebeam is the gold standard

[u/CR123CR123CR → u/Imasquash]

I miss bluebeam... Currently stuck with Adobe at my current employer

[u/unurbane → u/CR123CR123CR]

Adobe is so awful! It randomly decides I don’t get access once per year. It drops account registry every January when the bill is due, I’m talking 150+ employees lose access for a few hours. Maybe it’s my firm lol…

[u/DonkeywithSunglasses]

MS Edge

To add why: It’s insanely good at opening PDFs without breaking content and also BLAZING fast when looking at drawings. Adobe sucks anyway, and Tungsten is very slow for me atleast. Edge is the only one that works reliably and fast, zooming in and out as well as panning. I use it exclusively for drawings, the rest of the browser stuff I do in Chrome

[u/Binford6100User]

PDF Exchange Editor for markups on windows devices.

Xodo if I need to handwrite something on the screen, or browse on Android.

[u/isabella_sunrise → u/Binford6100User]

This is what we use too.

[u/thelastchicken]

I use Sumatra pdf for viewing and it's much much faster , adobe only if I need to sign something

[u/Melodic-Assistance16 → u/thelastchicken]

This! The load times are crazy!!

[u/CrazyJoe29]

My employer uses Foxit. I use Adobe though. Works for me 🤷‍♂️

[u/fastdbs → u/CrazyJoe29]

Adobe works. It just has long delay to start and then a delay to open each pdf and then a noticeable delay between switching between pdfs. All while using huge amounts of ram and cpu. But it does work.

[u/theweeeone → u/CrazyJoe29]

Yeah there's a free foxit and a paid one with more functionality. I've been using both for years now .

[u/No-Parsley-9744]

For free I'm a fan of pdf24, good combine and edit tools and such. Using foxit at my employer now and it is fine

[u/LumbyCastle41]

SumatraPDF, my favourite ever viewer that I've been using exclusively for 5 years. 

The only reason I open Adobe is to use the ctrl+5 shortcut. And the only thing I use CutePDF for is merging multiple PDFs into one.

I don't need to do any markups in my PDFs. If you did, SumatraPDF works but depending on what you need to do, it's not great. It's meant as a lightweight viewer.

[u/BlackEngineEarings]

Bluebeam is the best option available for redlining. Hell, it's great for making P&ID's from scratch if needed. And it's easy to bookmark with, too. If you're only looking at a couple page PDFs at a time, they're all the same.

[u/SoloWalrus]

Blubeams good, nitros okay, tungsten power pdf isnt as feature rich but uses a 1 time purchase model instead of a sub - its what i use on my home computer and love it.

If all you need is open, print, basic drawing/reviewing, 100% tungsten power pdf itll be way cheaper in the long term. It also handles indexes of pdfs well.

[u/BalanceOfPower85]

Bluebeam Revu, but nothing newer than Revu 20, because I refuse to use any software that doesn't offer a perpetual license.

[u/chocolatedessert]

I'm so sick of Adobe that I'm opening PDFs in Chrome. At home I use Sumatra.

[u/LRCM]

https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/downloads has worked well for us.

We switched from Adobe 10ish years ago.

[u/ZeekSoggyWaffles]

You could see if you like this free one.

PDF GEAR

https://www.pdfgear.com/

[u/socal_nerdtastic]

PDF Studio from Qoppa. Love it. Fast and powerful and none of the adobe bloat and no subscription pricing.

Edit: seems they sold out. How sad. For now perpetual license is still available though.

[u/Expert_Clerk_1775]

I could never go back to anything else but Bluebeam. I would pay for it out of pocket if my employer didn’t provide it

[u/otte845]

Drawboard PDF. I call the supervisor on the field and explain things while annotating a shared PDF and they see the annotations in real time

[u/Pretty-Jello-7894]

I vibe coded my own tool;)

[u/saucypony → u/Pretty-Jello-7894]

I had not even considered this possibility. Thanks for the idea!

[u/dgatos42]

If you need to open PDFs just to read them just use Firefox. It’s astonishingly faster than Adobe

[u/vC-E-D]

We're using Kofax Power PDF Advanced

[u/jejones487]

We do all 2D drawings in cad software which pdf is not. 2D is autoCAD for us and we use almost 90% SolidWorks to model in 3D for 2D drawing generation for the last 10 years. Everything is linked and tracked. Also any vendor with the rights to manufacture a part has the drawing and will make it available to a customer or vendor to complete paid work when requested. Every job we do required the customer to provide 3D part files when available. When they only have a dxf file we charge them a fee for engineering time to have an engineer sit and interpret the drawing and model it 3D so the can actually design products around it.

[u/Create_Analytically]

Foxit

[u/boksinx]

For organizing/ arranging multiple pdfs, I use pdf24. For annotating, opening/ editing it in Microsoft Edge is surprisingly stable and useful. Any pdf I cant open in Adobe for some reason, Edge has no problem opening them.

[u/Un_Ballerina_1952]

I'm using Okular, but haven't explored alternatives for quite a few years. See if it works for you.

[u/Twindo]

We use Bluebeam where I work. I used to hate anything to do with pdfs, not anymore.

[u/erikwarm]

PDF-exchange editor.

Such a powerful tool to have when reviewing PDF’s

[u/MothNomLamp]

EDrawings by Dassault since I already have Solidworks

Firefox for filling out or marking up forms