How to Install Okular 0.15 on 12.04 LTS?

See here for reference: http://okular.kde.org/news.php

The new version includes an option to save annotations to the PDF file itself. That's why I am very eager to try out. Is there any PPA from which I could install this new version?

Edit: Following 808sound's advice I managed to install Okular 0.15 on precise. The dependencies installed with the upgrade caused several issues with other programs. Fixing these issues required uninstalling Okular and downgrading packages that were upgraded with it. You might want to install Okular from the Kubuntu Backports PPA instead, although in this case you won't be able to export annotations to PDF. See below for more information. Please keep this in mind before choosing the source you want to install the latest Okular from.

Small remark: BlaXpirit's answer will provide you with the latest Okular minus the annotation feature. For this specific functionality to work you will have to follow 808sound's answer.

Solution 1:

I backported poppler 0.20.5 to Ubuntu 12.04, compiled Okular 0.16.2 (edit: now updated to 0.17) against it, and put them in a ppa. To use it, add the ppas ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports and ppa:kalakris/okular:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:kalakris/okular

Now update the package index and upgrade okular:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install okular

This version allows me to export annotations to PDF. Since these packages are compiled for precise, there should be no trouble with other dependencies, unlike the solution that suggests installing packages from quantal.

Solution 2:

Please read the following paragraph very carefully. This answer shows a way to upgrade Okular to 0.15 (with support for exporting annotations to PDF) on Ubuntu 12.04. Note that (as the OP has mentioned) the other solution regarding the Kubuntu backports PPA will get version 0.15 of Okular but will NOT give you the functionality to export annotations to PDF, which was something that the OP wanted. Unfortunately, you will find that this new functionality in Okular 0.15 is a bit limited, and it may not encode certain types of annotations into your PDF documents. In addition, upgrading can cause compatibility issues with fonts, etc. Thus, you should think twice before trying this.

To continue and try Okular 0.15 for yourself, you may want to first make a file old_packages.txt containing a list of your currently installed packages/versions (if you forget this, don't worry):

sudo apt-get install aptitude
aptitude -q -F "%?p=%?V" --disable-columns search \~i > old_packages.txt

To prepare for the upgrade, add the following two lines to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal main universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal main universe

Then run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install okular -f

If you get any errors, try this (repeatedly until the Okular install succeeds):

sudo apt-get install -f
sudo apt-get autoremove -f
sudo apt-get install okular -f

After, this typing

okular --version

should show version 0.15.x. Finally, to prevent unexpected stuff from getting added/upgraded, you should probably comment out the two added lines in /etc/apt/sources.list and do

sudo apt-get update

Please be warned that this procedure can cause other packages to be updated from the Quantal repository, creating compatibility issues with fonts, etc. The comments below this answer contain more information about this.

If you want to uninstall Okular 0.15 and undo all these changes to your packages, it is fairly straightforward. You should first do

sudo apt-get purge okular
sudo apt-get autoremove -f

At this point, you could use the old_packages.txt file you initially created to downgrade all of your packages to their previous versions (see here for the details). Or you can do the following nice procedure (detailed in an answer to a question about rolling back Ubuntu).

Edit /etc/apt/preferences and add the following

Package: *
Pin: release v=12.04
Pin-Priority: 1001

Finally, do

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f
sudo apt-get autoremove -f

You should now be back to your original 12.04 packages/versions.

Solution 3:

That's easy. Add ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports to your software sources and you'll be able to install KDE 4.9 software along with Okular 0.15.0