Archives For November 30, 1999

How to Install MuPDF 1.13.0 in Ubuntu 18.04

Last updated: May 21, 2018

MuPDF Ubuntu 16.04

This quick tutorial is going to show you how to install the latest MuPDF viewer 1.13.0 in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.10.

MuPDF is a lightweight PDF, XPS, and E-book viewer that consists of a software library, command line tools, and viewers for various platforms.

The latest MuPDF 1.13.0 is primarily a bugfix release that features:

  • New “mutool sign” tool for showing and verifying digital signatures.
  • Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, and Greek font support in mutool create.
  • Improvements to annotation editing API.
  • And some security fixes.

How to Install MuPDF 1.13.0 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint:

Besides building the tool from source, there’s an unofficial PPA with the packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 17.10, and their derivatives.

1. Open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T or searching for “Terminal” from start menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type in password (no visual feedback due to security reason) when it asks and hit Enter.

2. Then install mupdf and mupdf-tools packages either via Synaptic Package Manager or by running following commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mupdf mupdf-tools

If you have a previous release installed, simply launch Software Updater to upgrade the tool after checking for updates.

To use the PDF/XPS viewer, right-click on your file and select open with MuPDF. You can also set MuPDF as default in the Properties window.

Uninstall:

To restore MuPDF to the stock version available in your Ubuntu’s main archive, run command in terminal to purge the PPA:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

MuPDF 1.12.0 Released! How to Install it in Ubuntu

Last updated: December 15, 2017

MuPDF, a lightweight PDF, XPS, and E-book viewer, reached 1.12.0 release recently. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.04, Ubuntu 17.10, and their derivatives.

MuPDF 1.12.0 release highlights:

  • LCMS2 library for color management.
  • CMYK rendering with overprint simulation.
  • Spot color rendering.
  • Reworked structured text API.
  • Faster text searching.
  • New semantic XHTML output format.
  • New layout preserving HTML output format.
  • Improved non-AA rendering with new scan converter.
  • Improved support for LARGEFILE and TIFF
  • Add PCLm, and PSD output.
  • New “mutool trace” tool.
  • New “mutool sign” tool (work in progress).
  • And lots of bug fixes, See NEWS for details.

How to Install MuPDF 1.12.0 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint:

Besides building the tool from source, there’s an unofficial PPA with the packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.04, Ubuntu 17.10, and their derivatives.

1. Open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T or searching for “Terminal” from start menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type in password (no visual feedback due to security reason) when it asks and hit Enter.

2. Then install mupdf and mupdf-tools packages either via Synaptic Package Manager or by running following commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mupdf mupdf-tools

If you have a previous release installed, simply launch Software Updater to upgrade the tool after checking for updates.

To use the PDF/XPS viewer, right-click on your file and select open with MuPDF. You can also set MuPDF as default in the Properties window.

Uninstall:

To restore MuPDF to the stock version available in your Ubuntu’s main archive, run command in terminal to purge the PPA:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

MuPDF 1.10 Adds FictionBook (FB2) e-book Support

Last updated: November 12, 2016

MuPDF, a lightweight PDF, XPS, and E-book viewer, has reached the release candidate for version 1.10.

MuPDF 1.10 features FictionBook (FB2) e-book support, simple SVG parser, mutool convert (a new document conversion tool and interface), multi-threaded rendering in mudraw, luratech decoders for JBIG2 and JPEG2000, optional JPEG-XR support (not included by default for security reasons), updated base 14 fonts from URW, new CJK font with language specific variants, hyperlink support in EPUB.

There are also interface changes and cleanups, code size and memory usage improvements:

  • New tool muraster: example printer driver with limited RAM usage and automatic banding.
  • Alpha channel is now optional in pixmaps.
  • More aggressive purging of cached objects.
  • Partial image decoding for lower memory use when banding.
  • Reduced default set of built-in CMap tables to the minimum required.
  • FZ_ENABLE_PDF, _XPS, _JS, to disable features at compile time.
  • Function level linking.
  • Dropped pdf object generation numbers from public interfaces.
  • Simplified PDF page, xobject, and annotation internals.
  • Closing and freeing devices and writers are now separate steps.
  • Improved PDF annotation editing interface (still a work in progress).
  • Document writer interface.
  • Banded image writer interface.

Install MuPDF 1.10 RC in Ubuntu:

Besides building the new release from source, there’s an unofficial PPA available for Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 14.04 and derivatives.

Open terminal from the Dash / Launcher / or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut keys, then do following steps to install it:

1. Run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type in password (no visual feedback) when it asks and hit Enter.

2. To upgrade from a previous release, launch Software Updater and install updates after checking for updates.

Or run command in terminal to install /upgrade mupdf:

sudo apt install mupdf mupdf-tools

Once installed, right-click on your PDF file and select open with MuPDF PDF Viewer.

You can set MuPDF as the default viewer from PDF file’s Properties window -> Open With tab.

Uninstall:

To restore MuPDF to the stock version available in your Ubuntu’s main archive, run command in terminal to purge the PPA:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

How to Install MuPDF 1.9 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Last updated: March 21, 2019

The lightweight PDF and XPS viewer MuPDF 1.9 has been released. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and its derivatives.

According to the news page, MuPDF 1.9 brings following changes:

Headline changes:

  • New command line tools: create and run.
  • New low-level Java interface for desktop and android.
  • Bidirectional layout for Arabic and Hebrew scripts.
  • Shaping complex scripts for EPUB text layout.
  • Noto fallback fonts for EPUB layout.

mutool create:

  • Create new PDF files from scratch.
  • Read an annotated content stream in a text file and write a PDF file, automatically embedding font and image resources.

mutool run:

  • Run javascript scripts with MuPDF bindings.
  • The interface is similar to the new Java interface.

mutool draw:

  • Optional multi-threaded operation (Windows and pthreads).
  • Optional low memory mode (primarily for testing).

How to Install MuPDF in Ubuntu:

1. Launch terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to add PPA (unofficial):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

Type in your password when it asks and hit Enter to continue. No visual feedback while typing password. You can lately manage the PPA in Software & Updates -> Other Software.

2. Then update package index and install the software via commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mupdf mupdf-tools

After installation, right-click on a PDF/XPS file and select open with MuPDF. You may also set MuPDF as default viewer in file’s Properties settings window.

For those who don’t want to add PPA, grab .deb packages for mupdf and mupdf-tools at PPA Index page.

MuPDF, a free, open-source, and lightweight PDF and XPS viewer, now reaches the 1.8 release with new features, improvements and various fixes.

MuPDF is a lightweight PDF viewer and toolkit written in portable C, which also reads XPS, OpenXPS and EPUB documents. It works on Windows, Android, and Linux.

The renderer in MuPDF is tailored for high quality anti-aliased graphics. It renders text with metrics and spacing accurate to within fractions of a pixel for the highest fidelity in reproducing the look of a printed page on screen.

What’s New in MuPDF 1.8:

Headline changes:

  • New OpenGL-based barebones desktop viewer.
  • New URW fonts with greek and cyrillic.
  • 64-bit file support.
  • Ghostscript proofing mode (source only; not in shipped binaries).

EPUB improvements:

  • User style sheets.
  • GIF images (also for CBZ).
  • Table of contents.
  • CJK text.
  • Page margins.
  • Many bug fixes.

Bug fixes:

  • Updated FreeType to version 2.6.1.
  • Various font substitution bug fixes.
  • Fix setjmp/longjmp behaviour which could cause optimizing compilers to misbehave.

In addition, mudraw has been merged into mutool, use mutool draw to use mudraw.

How to Install MuPDF 1.8 in Ubuntu:

There are Android, Windows installers, and source tarball available in its official download page.

For Ubuntu and derivatives, you can either build the viewer from the source or use my personal binaries in PPA.

Method 1:

Open terminal from Unity Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run below commands one by one to add my PPA and install MuPDF:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install mupdf mupdf-tools

Method 2 For those who don’t want to add PPA:

Depends on your Ubuntu edition (e.g., 15.10, 15.04, 14.04, and 12.04), and OS type (i386.deb for 32-bit and amd64.deb for 64-bit)

select download the .deb packages for mupdf and mupdf-tools from the link below:

MuPDF in PPA page

Finally click install the packages via Ubuntu Software Center.

How to Use:

The PDF viewer doesn’t have a launcher. To use it, right-click on the file and select it from the “Open With” option.

To set default, go to file’s context menu -> Properties -> Open With tab -> select MuPDF from list -> finally click ‘Set as default’ button.

For mouse behavior and key bindings run man mupdf command in terminal.

Uninstall:

You may remove the PPA by launching Software & Updates and then navigate to Other Software tab. Also remove MuPDF via Ubuntu Software Center if you want.

MuPDF is a small, fast, and yet complete PDF viewer that supports PDF 1.7 with transparency, encryption, hyperlinks, annotations, searching and more. It also reads XPS and OpenXPS documents.

The renderer in MuPDF is tailored for high quality anti-aliased graphics. It renders text with metrics and spacing accurate to within fractions of a pixel for the highest fidelity in reproducing the look of a printed page on screen.

MuPDF is available in Ubuntu repositories by default, but Canonical does not provide updates for this software. While Ubuntu Software Center provides the 1.6 (or older) release, the latest MuPDF 1.7a was released in last month with below changes:

  • Fixed bug that allocated too much memory when packing paths.
  • Fixed EPUB font scaling bug.
  • Fixed EPUB file type handling in viewers.
  • Improved tolerance for broken and unsupported CSS.
  • Added -z option to mutool clean.

Install MuPDF in Ubuntu:

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

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps

2. After adding the PPA, open Software Updater to automatically check for updates

After checking for updates, you’ll see MuPDF in the list available for upgrade if you have a previous version installed.

If you don’t have a previous release installed in your system, install it via Synaptic Package Manager or by running below command in terminal:

sudo apt-get install mupdf mupdf-tools

Once installed, open PDF/XPS files using MuPDF from their context (right-click) menu. For key bindings and other options, run man mupdf in terminal.

To set MuPDF as default viewer, go to PDF file’s context menu -> Properties -> Open With tab -> select the viewer from list and click Set as default button.

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.