Okular
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 6 PDF readers by recommenders
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.
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.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Opens Markdown files directly
“Okular should do the trick, it should even update live when you update the markdown file.”
Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Plugins case study: mdBook preprocessors” “I can just view markdown in okular directly instead of using a script”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Okular – The Universal Document Viewer” “Just set Okular as the default app for markdown files”
Comment from 22 Oct 2026 in “A Markdown File Should Just Open” Handles reading and light editing
“The table select option in Okular is also great”
Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “Computer use in Gemini 3.5 Flash” “Between Okular for reading and quick edits”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Is there a good open-source alternative to Adobe Acrobat?”
Other PDF readers people recommend
The four most recommended other PDF readers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Preview | 42 | 28 | 60% | 10 | — | — |
| OkularThis page | 12 | 5 | 71% | 5 | — | Approved |
| MuPDF | 11 | 3 | 79% | 7 | — | Approved |
| SumatraPDF | 11 | 1 | 92% | 7 | — | Approved |
| pdf.js | 10 | 4 | 71% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
15 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“doesn't render tables with any kind of borders”
“it doesn't reflow the text on width change, it just makes the font bigger/smaller (like a PDF)”
“Just set Okular as the default app for markdown files”
“Okular (KDE) and Evince (GNOME) both do.”
“KDE's Okular, which I find fugly but can handle comments”
“The table select option in Okular is also great”
“It‘s working great on Windows, as well.”
“I can just view markdown in okular directly instead of using a script”
“The latter two are obvious choices, the former is not.”
“Okular handles cbz that contain jxl with no issue.”
“Between Okular for reading and quick edits”
“if you have a tonne of memory, this makes it the smoothest pdf viewer I have ever used”
“Can Okular sign a damn pdf with a pfx certificate yet or do I still need a PhD to set that up?”
“Okular should do the trick, it should even update live when you update the markdown file.”
“Many KDE apps (Dolphin, Kate, Okular, etc.) let you configure their tool bars”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.