Why can't the PDF document be read? Programs for opening PDF files. File related solutions

PDF is one of the most common formats for documentation, e-books and instructions. In PDF format, you can save information in any form, and it will be displayed the same everywhere, i.e. The formatting and layout of the document will always be the same. This is why the PDF format has earned its recognition.

To begin with, I would like to immediately clarify that the programs that will be discussed open PDF files only FOR VIEWING, i.e. It is IMPOSSIBLE to change anything in a document using them. Some programs only allow you to modify the text, but not the content. The PDF format itself is quite specific, and even with the help of editors, the process of editing it is not at all similar to working with a Word document.

In the simplest case, you can read the file in any modern browser: Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Edge. The functionality will be limited: only viewing content and printing. To do this, simply drag the file to an empty browser tab. But if the PDF file does not open this way, then try installing one of the programs.

Uncompromising Acrobat

In order not to have any problems with displaying PDF files, it is best to install the program of the format developer itself - Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Just select the program language “Russian” if the download page itself does not correctly determine it. The installation process is trivial, just click “Next” all the time.

Adobe has a complete package for working with PDF documents, including creating and editing - but it is paid.

Acrobat Reader provides a good set of features and flexibility in customization for ease of use. It's completely free for both home and commercial use and is on my list. When you first start, you will need to confirm the use of a free license. Most likely, you won’t even have to go into the settings, because the program works great by default.

In the latest versions of Adobe Reader, there is still a small opportunity to change a file. These are tools for highlighting text and inserting comments. The title “Text Highlighting” is probably not a very good Russian translation, because... “Text highlighting” is more suitable. To highlight the text, click on the icon in the toolbar and select the text, and the add comments icon is located immediately to the left.

By default, text is highlighted in yellow. You can change the highlight color only after highlighting with the default color. To do this, double-click on the selection and in the window click on the icon and select “Properties”. From there you can remove the highlight and add or change a comment.

Alternative programs for PDF

Acrobat Reader, of course, is far from the only PDF viewer. The developers managed to make an ordinary viewer a relatively heavy product. Basically there are no problems, but the program takes a long time to install and sometimes slows down.

Foxit Reader

The program is lightweight and has a simple interface. As a result, Foxit Reader launches quickly and is less demanding on computer resources.

Particular attention is paid to security, namely, at the first launch it is suggested to set the safe mode, in which attachments in the document are not opened and scripts are not run. Foxit Reader allows you to select text, insert comments, graphic objects, multimedia files (video and audio), but you can edit text only in the paid package Foxit PDF Editor.

However, over time, Foxit Reader has also become heavier, so I advise you to run its portable version.

Portable versions are distinguished by the fact that they are lighter and installation is very quick or not required at all. When you first start it, a window with two buttons will pop up, select “Not Now”. For the program to become in Russian, you need to go to the menu “File -> Preferences -> Language -> select Russian”

And restart the program with the “Restart Now” button.

The easiest one is Sumatra PDF

This is already an open source project, the program is the lightest and is not at all demanding on resources. Can open not only PDF, but also CHM, XPS, DjVu, CBZ and CBR files.

Two versions are available: for installation and portable (works without installation). Since Sumatra PDF is already very lightweight, I advise you to download the full version, so you can immediately install the program to open all PDF files by default.

The program has practically no settings, everything is easy and simple.

If you have ever downloaded books, reports or other text documents from the Internet, then you have probably come across files that have the pdf extension. Finding themselves in such a situation, users often do not know how to open a PDF file. As a rule, programs for working with PDF are simply installed on the computer, which confuses many. In this article we will briefly look at a number of popular programs that allow you to open PDF files.

One of the most popular programs is certainly Adobe (Acrobat) Reader. This program is developed by Adobe. Adobe Reader provides the user with a full set of basic functions for reading and viewing PDF documents. If this is your first time encountering this type of document and you don’t know how to open a PDF file, then Adobe Reader is the perfect choice for you.

In addition to Adobe Reader, Adobe produces software for creating PDF documents. This is an Adobe Acrobat program. This program is paid and is available in two versions: Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro.

Screenshot of Adobe (Acrobat) Reader:

You can learn more about the Adobe Reader program from the official website.

Another quite popular program for working with PDF documents. Foxit Reader has gained popularity due to its simplicity and low requirements for system resources. Foxit Reader can be used without problems even on the weakest computers. For a long time, this program was distributed without an installer, just as an EXE file ready for use.

At the same time, Foxit Reader is practically in no way inferior to Adobe Reader. It has all the necessary functions to fully work with PDF files. When people ask me how to open a pdf file, I recommend this program.

It should be noted that Foxit Reader is a cross-platform solution. Now there are versions of this program for such operating systems as: Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, iOS, Android and Symbian.

Screenshot of Foxit Reader:

To know more about this software, visit the official website.

Another light and fast program for reading pdf documents. In addition to simply reading pdf documents, Cool PDF Reader is equipped with a number of other features that set it apart from its competitors.

Let's take a closer look at the main features of the Cool PDF Reader program:

  • View and print PDF documents;
  • Convert PDF documents into formats such as: TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF and EPS;
  • Extract text from PDF format to TXT;
  • Supports all versions of PDF format;
  • Supports 68 different languages;
  • View PDF files as slide shows;

Moreover, the program is only 808 kilobytes in size and is not very demanding on computer resources.

Screenshot of Cool PDF Reader:

You can find out more about the Cool PDF Reader program on the official website.

Sumatra PDF is an open source program. In addition to PDF files, it can also work with files in ePub, XPS, MOBI, CHM, DjVu, CBZ and CBR formats. This program is available both as an installer and in a portable version.

Other features of the Sumatra PDF program include:

  • Simple and intuitive interface;
  • Supports more than 60 languages;
  • Correct smoothing of images when scaling the document;
  • Regular updates;

Screenshot of the Sumatra PDF program:

You can find out more about the program on the official website.

STDU Viewer is a universal program for viewing electronic documents. The STDU Viewer program supports a large number of formats and is equipped with all the necessary functions to work with them. By installing this program, you will no longer have questions about how to open a PDF file or a document in another format. STDU Viewer will solve all your problems.

Let's take a closer look at the main features of the STDU Viewer program:

  • View documents in formats: PDF, Comic Book Archive (CBR or CBZ), DjVu, FB2, XPS, TCR, ePub, multi-page TIFF, TXT, EMF, WMF, PalmDoc, BMP, JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PCX, DCX , PSD, MOBI and AZW;
  • Simple and intuitive interface with tab support;
  • Ability to customize document display parameters (brightness, contrast, etc.);
  • View page thumbnails;
  • Creating custom bookmarks;
  • For text documents, the user can control the size and color of fonts;
  • Powerful search in text documents;
  • Support for several languages, including Russian;
  • Ability to print documents;

STDU Viewer is a fairly young program. The first version of STDU Viewer appeared in 2007. Then the program supported only three formats: PDF, DjVu and TIFF. As you can see, the program has come a long way during its development and now allows you to open a large number of different formats.

Screenshot of the STDU Viewer program:

You can find out more about this program on the official website.

A few words about PFD format

PDF or Portable Document Format is one of the most common electronic document formats. This format was developed by Adobe Systems. The first version of the format appeared back in 1993. After this, the format actively developed. Almost every year it added support for new functions. Thus, during development, the following features were added to the Portable Document Format: password protection, Unicode support, interactive elements, links, digital signatures, transparency, text layers, forms, encryption and much more.

The main purpose of PDF is the publication of printed products in electronic form. Most professional printing equipment supports the format and can print such documents without additional processing or conversion.

At the beginning of its journey, the PDF format was not very popular. And there were objective reasons for this:

  • The necessary software to work with the format was paid;
  • The format did not support external links, which did not allow it to be fully used on the World Wide Web;
  • PDF files weighed significantly more than regular text documents. This also created barriers to using it online;
  • Processing documents in this format required significant system resources, which led to slow document display on weak computers:
  • In addition, there were other formats that created competition.

Now, none of these issues are relevant to the PDF format anymore. Adobe has released a free version of the program for viewing PDF files, and programs from other manufacturers have also appeared.

Over more than 10 years of existence, the format has come a long way in development and is currently a very powerful and flexible tool for creating documents.

Greetings, dear readers of the blog site. Recently, I have often encountered the problem that Adobe Reader does not open pdf documents. Subsequently, it turned out that only those pdf files that are located in network folders with DFS paths cannot be opened. When trying to open such a file, an error occurs: “An error occurred while opening this document. Access denied":

Since I encountered a similar error more than once, I decided to write a post in case someone else has the same problems.

The solution to the problem turned out to be quite simple. The fact is that with the tenth version, Adobe Reader introduced a protected mode, which by default prohibits opening documents located on network storage.

Therefore, to prevent errors from occurring, it is enough to disable this mode. This is done very simply:

1. Launch Adobe Reader;

2. Go to the menu "Editing -> Installations";

4. And uncheck the parameter "Enable Protected Mode at startup":

5. After restarting Adobe Reader everything should work.

Or you can simply make changes to the Registry. In the section or depending on the version of Adobe Reader, add the parameter "bProtectedMode"=dword:00000000 . This can be done via the command line using the command:

for Adobe Reader 10.0:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\Privileged" /v bProtectedMode /t REG_DWORD /d 0×0 /f

for Adobe Reader 11.0:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\Privileged" /v bProtectedMode /t REG_DWORD /d 0×0 /f

After these manipulations, network files usually begin to open.

For convenience, we will distinguish four types of programs: viewers (for reading and annotating), editors (for editing text and other content), managers (for splitting, compressing and other manipulations with files) and converters (for converting PDF to other formats).

Most applications can be classified into several types at once.

  • Type: viewer, editor, converter, manager.
  • Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux.

A very intuitive and convenient program with an impressive number of functions. When you launch Sejda PDF, you will immediately see all the tools grouped by category. Select the one you need, drag the required file into the program window and start manipulating. Most things in this app can be done in a few seconds, even if you are using it for the first time.

What you can do in Sejda PDF:

  • edit text, add images and shapes;
  • convert PDF to Excel, JPG (and vice versa), Word (and vice versa);
  • combine and separate files into pages, compress their size;
  • protect documents with a password;
  • add watermarks;
  • discolor documents;
  • trim page area;
  • sign documents.

The free version of the program has limitations. For example, files should not be more than 200 pages and not exceed 50 MB in size. In addition, you cannot perform more than three operations with documents during the day. The full version of Sejda PDF costs $5.25 per month.

  • Type: manager, converter, editor.
  • Platforms: Windows, macOS, .

PDFsam cannot boast of a polished, user-friendly interface. In addition, the program does not allow you to convert PDF and edit the contents of documents for free. But it does have several useful managerial functions that are available to everyone without payment or any restrictions.

What you can do in PDFsam:

  • combine PDF in several modes (glue in parts or mix page by page);
  • split PDF by pages, bookmarks (in places with specified words) and size into separate documents;
  • rotate pages (if some of them were scanned upside down);
  • extract pages with specified numbers;
  • convert Excel, Word, PowerPoint formats to PDF;
  • convert PDF to Excel, Word and PowerPoint formats ($10);
  • edit text and other file content ($30).

  • Type
  • Platforms: Windows.

A very functional program with a classic interface in the style of Microsoft office applications. PDF-XChange Editor is not very beginner friendly. To master all the features of the program, you need to spend some time. Fortunately, all internal descriptions and tips are translated into Russian.

What you can do in PDF-XChange Editor:

  • add annotations and highlight text;
  • edit text and other content;
  • recognize text using OCR;
  • extract pages from documents;
  • encrypt documents (paid);
  • convert PDF to Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats and vice versa (paid);
  • compress files (paid);
  • sort pages in any order (paid).

These are not all the functions that you can find in PDF-XChange Editor. The program is available in several versions with different numbers of features. The cost of paid versions starts at $43.5.

  • Type: viewer, manager, converter, editor.
  • Platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS.

A popular universal program for working with PDF from the company. The free version is a very convenient document viewer; other functions are available by subscription starting at 149 rubles per month.

What you can do in Adobe Acrobat Reader:

  • view documents, highlight and comment on text, search for words and phrases;
  • sign documents (paid);
  • edit text and other content (paid);
  • combine documents into one file (paid);
  • compress files (paid);
  • convert PDF to Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats (paid);
  • Convert images in JPG, JPEG, TIF and BMP formats to PDF (paid).

All these features and more are available in desktop versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Mobile versions of the program only allow you to view and annotate documents, and also, after subscribing, convert them into different formats.

  • Type: viewer, converter.
  • Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS.

Fast and convenient PDF reader with different viewing modes. Ideal for users who want a simple document reader without a lot of extra features. The program is available on all major platforms.