Alternatives to Papers
A GNOME document viewer for reading, searching and annotating PDFs, DjVu, TIFF and comics. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Papers
A GNOME document viewer for reading, searching and annotating PDFs, DjVu, TIFF and comics.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Papers.
Evince
GNOME's lightweight document viewer for PDF, PostScript and other document formats on Linux.
Evince is GNOME's established GPL document viewer for PDF and PostScript on Linux, with a simple interface but without Papers' adaptive small-screen layout.
Okular
Universal document viewer for PDF, EPUB, comics, DjVu and more.
Okular is a GPL viewer for Windows, macOS and Linux that opens PDF, EPUB, comics and DjVu, and stores annotations separately, but pulls in KDE libraries.
Xreader
Linux Mint's document viewer for PDF, PostScript, DjVu, XPS and comic book files.
Xreader is Linux Mint's GPL viewer for PDF, PostScript, DjVu, XPS and comics, maintained by the Linux Mint team.
Atril
The MATE desktop's multi-page document viewer for PDF, PostScript, DjVu, XPS and comics.
Atril is the MATE desktop's GPL viewer for PDF, PostScript, DjVu, XPS and comics, offering a lightweight traditional interface without annotation features.
zathura
A minimal, keyboard-driven document viewer with plugin support for PDF, PostScript and DjVu.
zathura is a Zlib-licensed keyboard-driven Linux viewer with plugins for PDF, PostScript and DjVu, configured through text files and without form filling.
qpdfview
A tabbed Qt document viewer for PDF, PostScript and DjVu files.
qpdfview is a tabbed Qt viewer for PDF, PostScript and DjVu with SyncTeX support, though its annotation support is rudimentary.
Sioyek
A PDF reader built for textbooks and research papers, with keyboard control and quick jumps to figures and references.
Sioyek is a GPL reader for Windows, macOS and Linux aimed at papers and textbooks, with keyboard control and reference overlays but weaker annotation.
MuPDF
Compact, very fast PDF and XPS viewer with a command-line toolkit.
MuPDF is an AGPL viewer across desktop and mobile with very fast rendering and a bundled command-line toolkit, but a deliberately minimal keyboard interface.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Papers as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
DjVuLibre
An open-source DjVu implementation with a viewer and command-line tools for scanned documents.
Papers is a GNOME viewer that opens DjVu, PDF, TIFF and comics with annotation and an adaptive interface, but offers no DjVu conversion tools.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
PDF Arranger
Drag PDF pages into the order you want, rotate them, crop them, and merge two files together.
PDF Mix Tool
A lightweight open-source Linux app for merging, splitting, rotating and rearranging PDF pages.
Xournal++
Handwritten notes and PDF annotation with a stylus, including on top of lecture slides and scanned papers.
Rnote
An open-source vector drawing app for handwritten notes, sketches and annotating PDFs and pictures.
Poppler
PDF rendering library with pdftotext, pdftoppm and pdfinfo tools.
