How to install xpdf on Ubuntu 20.04

You can manually download XPDF from 19.10 repository and install it with commands below:

cd ~/Downloads

wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/p/poppler/libpoppler73_0.62.0-2ubuntu2.12_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./libpoppler73_0.62.0-2ubuntu2.12_amd64.deb
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/x/xpdf/xpdf_3.04-7_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install ./xpdf_3.04-7_amd64.deb

xpdf was dropped from Ubuntu after 19.10. It's upstream development has slowed, the Debian package maintainer lost interest, and much of the functionality was replaced (and improved) by poppler, which is in 20.04.

1. Please file an upstream bug with eprints so they will change their dependency. That doesn't help you much today, but will make a huge difference in the future.

2. Try using the the 19.10 xpdf package. It's not guaranteed, but much better than nothing.

   • Get the package from http://packages.ubuntu.com.
   • Install using sudo apt install /path/to/filename.deb

After some research, first failing to get xpdf to build or install, then evaluating some competitors, I found that okular is quite a good alternative. It's fast and the interface is more modern and comprehensive than others.

Of the installation choices:

• sudo apt install okular
• sudo snap install okular

apt wanted to install 185 packages and dependencies totaling 184 MB. I chose the snap because it's 70 MB and self-contained.

okular maintains the settings pretty well across invocations. It has a --qwindowgeometry option that works like xpdf --geometry.

Other tools (pdftotext, etc) are already there in poppler-utils.