# Okular

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Okular and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** KDE's free document viewer opens PDFs, Markdown and comics smoothly, with handy reading and light editing tools. Critics say it does not reflow text when the window is resized.

## Why people recommend it

- Opens Markdown files directly (3 comments): "Okular should do the trick, it should even update live when you update the markdown file." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46384352)) "I can just view markdown in okular directly instead of using a script" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48476425)) "Just set Okular as the default app for markdown files" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50192657))
- Handles reading and light editing (2 comments): "The table select option in Okular is also great" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669069)) "Between Okular for reading and quick edits" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46773923))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Apple Preview](https://hackerapproved.com/p/preview.md): 42 recommend
- [MuPDF](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mupdf.md): 11 recommend
- [SumatraPDF](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sumatrapdf.md): 11 recommend
- [pdf.js](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pdf-js.md): 10 recommend
- [Foxit Reader](https://hackerapproved.com/p/foxit-reader.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Okular", https://hackerapproved.com/p/okular/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).