MuPDF, a lightweight PDF and XPS viewer, has reached the 1.7 release. Here’s how to install or upgrade it in Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

MuPDF is a free and open-source viewer written in C. It focuses on speed, small code size, and high-quality anti-aliased rendering. Since the 1.2 release, MuPDF has optional support for interactive features such as form filling, JavaScript and transitions.

While Ubuntu repositories provide a very old version, the latest release, MuPDF 1.7, was released a few days ago with some new features and great improvements:

• New HTML layout engine, and (DRM-free) EPUB viewer.
• Reduced memory usage – reducing total memory use on some files by over 60%.
• Better mouse wheel handling
• Shift-space support
• Add mutool pages option.
• Mouse button control of presentation mode
• many bug fixes.

For more, see the official release notes.

Install or Upgrade MuPDF:

For Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 15.04, and Linux Mint 13/17, the latest packages have been made into the PPA repository.

1. Open terminal from the Dash, Menu, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

2. After adding the PPA, refresh your system package cache:

sudo apt-get update

3. Finally install the viewer via command:

sudo apt-get install mupdf mupdf-tools

You may replace step 2 & 3 by upgrading the software through Software Updater.

Once installed, open your PDF or XPS file via MuPDF through files’ right-click menu “Open With” option.

For its keyboard shortcuts, run command man mupdf in terminal and see the result.