Evince
Encyclopedia
Evince is a document viewer for PDF
, PostScript
, DjVu
, TIFF
and DVI designed for the GNOME
desktop environment
.
The developers of Evince intended to replace the multiple GNOME document
viewers with a single and simple application
. The Evince motto sums up the project aim: "Simply a Document Viewer".
GNOME has included Evince since the release of GNOME 2.12 in September 2005. It is written mainly in C
, with a small part (the code that interfaces with poppler
) written in C++
.
Released under the GNU General Public License
, Evince is free software
.
. Evince quickly surpassed the functionality of GPdf and replaced both GPdf and GGV in the September 2005 release of GNOME
2.12.
of the viewer) thumbnail
s of pages to assist in page navigation within a document. When documents support indices, Evince gives the option of showing the document index for quickly moving from one section to another.
Evince can show two pages at a time, left and right, and offers full-screen and slide-show views.
Evince allows the selection of text in PDF files and allows users to highlight and copy text from documents made from scanned images, if the PDF includes OCR data.
Built-in support
Optional support
Possible or planned support
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
, PostScript
PostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
, DjVu
DjVu
DjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy...
, TIFF
Tagged Image File Format
TIFF is a file format for storing images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers in general. As of 2009, it is under the control of Adobe Systems...
and DVI designed for the GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
desktop environment
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
.
The developers of Evince intended to replace the multiple GNOME document
Document
The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...
viewers with a single and simple application
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
. The Evince motto sums up the project aim: "Simply a Document Viewer".
GNOME has included Evince since the release of GNOME 2.12 in September 2005. It is written mainly in C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
, with a small part (the code that interfaces with poppler
Poppler (software)
In computing, Poppler is a free software library used to render PDF documents. It is used by the PDF viewers of the open source GNOME and KDE desktop environments, and its development is supported by freedesktop.org....
) written in C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
.
Released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, Evince is free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
.
History
Evince began as a rewrite of GPdf, which its support programmers had started to find unwieldy to maintainSoftware maintenance
Software Maintenance in software engineering is the modification of a software product after delivery to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes....
. Evince quickly surpassed the functionality of GPdf and replaced both GPdf and GGV in the September 2005 release of GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
2.12.
Features
Evince incorporates an integrated search that displays the number of results found and highlights the results on the page. Users can optionally display (in the left sidebarSidebar (computing)
The sidebar is a term that is used for a GUI element that displays various forms of information to the side of an application or desktop user interface.-Widgets in sidebars:...
of the viewer) thumbnail
Thumbnail
Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words...
s of pages to assist in page navigation within a document. When documents support indices, Evince gives the option of showing the document index for quickly moving from one section to another.
Evince can show two pages at a time, left and right, and offers full-screen and slide-show views.
Evince allows the selection of text in PDF files and allows users to highlight and copy text from documents made from scanned images, if the PDF includes OCR data.
Supported document formats
Evince supports many different single and multi-page document formats:Built-in support
- PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
using the PopplerPoppler (software)In computing, Poppler is a free software library used to render PDF documents. It is used by the PDF viewers of the open source GNOME and KDE desktop environments, and its development is supported by freedesktop.org....
backendFront-end and back-endFront end and back end are generalized terms that refer to the initial and the end stages of a process. The front end is responsible for collecting input in various forms from the user and processing it to conform to a specification the back end can use... - PostScriptPostScriptPostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
using the GhostscriptGhostscriptGhostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format page description languages.- Features :...
backend - Multi-Page TIFFTagged Image File FormatTIFF is a file format for storing images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers in general. As of 2009, it is under the control of Adobe Systems...
Optional support
- DVI
- DjVuDjVuDjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy...
using the DjVuLibre backend - OpenDocument Presentation when built with the
--enable-impressoption - ImagesDigital imageA digital image is a numeric representation of a two-dimensional image. Depending on whether or not the image resolution is fixed, it may be of vector or raster type...
(currently included as a toy, but needs work) - CBR, CBZ, CB7 (Comic Book Archive file)
Possible or planned support
- Microsoft PowerPointMicrosoft PowerPointMicrosoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
using libpreview (currently alpha-quality)
See also
- List of PDF software
- OkularOkularOkular is the document viewer for KDE SC 4 . It is based on KPDF and it replaced KPDF, KGhostView, KFax, KFaxview and KDVI in KDE 4.Its functionality can be easily embedded in other applications....
- the counterpart PDF viewer for KDEKDEKDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
.