PDFView is an Open Source alternative for the PDF viewers.
There are other programs such as
Adobe Reader or the built in Preview. This program has some features that probably makes you to ask yourself: “Which one is the best?”
I won't say much about the reading engine, because Adobe Reader is the king since they invented the PDF document format. This application has other advantages when compared to the above mentioned applications.
The producer implemented the application with the purpose to improve the readability. When you open a PDF file, it is displayed automatically at the highest size using the auto-fit functionality.
Another nice and ergonomic functionality is the scrolling mode. Usually the PDF readers jump to the next page when the bottom of the page is reached. This reader won't jump directly to the next page, but it scrolls smoothly the page.
Another nice functionality is the possibility to read the PDF documents in the full-screen mode. In this mode the reading is very easy and I find it very useful.
Pluses: it improves the readability of the PDF documents in a very elegant manner, it loads the documents much faster that Adobe Reader.
Drawbacks / flaws: because it isn't the official PDF reading application, you might get errors when it's displaying your documents.
In conclusion: you may like it or not. In my humble opinion this application is better than Preview and faster than Adobe Reader. It also has a way much better ergonomic implementation.
version reviewed: 0.11.2
PDFView Publisher's Description
PDFView is a very simple Mac OS X application to display PDF files.
But why should you use PDFView instead of Preview? Well, there's a simple reason: it's readable! What does this mean? It means that the main window will open up maximized, and the zoom level will be automatically the highest possible to fit the document into your screen (you can decide, however, a default zoom level in preferences). So, if you open a file with PDFView, you can display it as much big and readable as your screen would allow. No more need to zoom in to figure out what those small characters mean. Especially valuable if you are using a small size screen, such on 13" laptops.
PDFView's latest versions support also full screen mode, to make it even easier to read your documents. PDFView it's an Universal Binary, and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.
System Requirements Mac OS X 10.4 or later.