Install Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1.2 on Ubuntu 8.04

james 2008/06/23

james@james-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install acroread
[sudo] password for james:
Hi, tried your tutorial out with the following response:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package acroread is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package acroread has no installation candidate

Jack Sprat 2008/06/24

Why don’t you just download the .deb from Adobe’s website? Then you wouldn’t have to post on the Planet about it when you can download it from Adobe’s site? They do offer a .deb file of the latest version of Adobe Reader, if you take the time on their download page to look for it, and it works great.

AndrewYoungIsGreat 2008/06/24

Did you do the first 2 steps?

sudo wget http://www.medibu….

sudo apt-get update …..

San 2009/08/19

Even doing the above steps did not work for me. I get the same error as James mentioned.

bob keyes 2008/06/24

Hrm, both xpdf and this version of acroread crash when processing the pdf 1.7 standard, as downloaded from Adobe. So much for standards!

Marius Gedminas 2008/06/25

What’s the point? I’m genuinely curious: is there anything that Acrobat Reader does better than Evince?

Tito the Builder 2009/04/16

evince doesn't allow me to view comments left by coworkers
Bob Kline 2009/07/01

Yes, there are a number of PDF documents Evince can't print which acroread can.
Joe Naylor 2009/07/27

Ditto on comments, Evince highlights the text but will not show the comment.

Harry Jarocki 2008/07/07

Used your tutorial and install went flawlessly in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. Kudos for such an easy way to install Adobe PDF reader for Linux Novice. Thank you very much. Respectfully, Harry

Bruno 2008/07/08

Same here, used you tutorial and worked flawlessly in ubuntu 8.04 64 bits.
Thank you

Matt 2008/07/08

Doesn’t work for me… I’m getting Error 403: Forbidden on the first step.

Michael 2008/07/12

I get error 403 as well

fvs 2008/07/14

It worked just fine. Thanx

BCG 2008/07/15

thanks a million!!!!!!!

MIkko Ohtamaa 2008/07/16

Thanks a lot!

Mike 2008/07/23

After installing acroread using the medibuntu repo, Adobe Acrobat does not appear as one of the applications listed when you right click a PDF, click Properties, click Open With.

I’ve gotten around this by clicking the Add button and adding /usr/bin/acroread

However, now it shows up in the list of PDF programs as “acroread” and not “Adobe Acrobat 8”.

Does anyone know how to get it to show up under “Open With” using the user friendly name?

Interestingly, installing this on a CentOS 5 system via RPM, the rpm automatically adds it to the list (doesn’t make it the default, however).

drm protected content 2008/08/01

My understanding is that Evince and kpdf and whatever will not open DRM protected PDF files like the ones University of Phoenix distributes to students of their online classes. I could be wrong though.

alvaro 2008/08/03

really thanks a lot! it work so easy

tuathan 2008/08/04

thanks, this installed the pdf software fine on my Compaq Presario C700 notebook running Ubuntu 8.04

Yves 2008/08/06

I agree with Jack Sprat.
The .deb file is easy to find on the adobe website, and seamless to install with the Gdebi package installer.

Paul Guenther 2008/08/11

worked great for me as well Ubuntu 8.04. Just copy and paste commands into Konsol. enter password and accept warnings

Domaniczky Lajos 2008/08/20

works like a charm.

Andrew 2008/08/23

very nice!

CyberMage 2008/09/11

If it’s so easy to find the .deb on Adobe’s site, how about a link? All it gives me the option to download is an RPM.

linezfanatix 2008/09/13

Nice tutorial, installation works like charm, great post, Thanks a ton

eduardo 2008/09/16

thanks, this works fine…

mel roch 2008/09/20

AFAIK Evince’s and Kpdf’s search functions are
inferior to Acroread’s. I can’t live without the latter’s grep search…

Vivien 2008/09/23

Thank you very much for this. Downloading the Adobe Reader for Linux from the Adobe site was a complete waste of time for a novice, seeing as there were no installation instructions.

This was perfect.

Michael 2008/09/25

Thanks for the instruction.

For everyone asking “What’s the point?”, Acrobat is the only pdf viewer that handles gouraud patches correctly.

cool 2008/09/26

yup, this is great, though the last time i used acrobat it didnt work properly , for large pdf, lets see how this works, i always rely on xpdf or evince.

Alex 2008/09/26

As always, thanks, works great!, and easier than adobe page.

James Flockton 2008/09/27

Thanks very much, I needed acrobat as Royalmail had some labels to print from PDF that had some sort of watermark. XPDF printed this HUGE “SAMPLE” across the label. Adobe acrobat fix this, thanks for the guide.

James

Niraj 2008/10/02

Thanks! Works perfectly.

sagat20005 2008/10/03

work perfctely ,thank’s

parth 2008/10/06

thanks a lot for the instructions!

gergio77 2008/10/07

Very good, thanks a lot. Evince was an unbelievable mountain of shit…

bbrain 2008/10/11

Only Acroread validates digital signatures in
documents that are digitally signed.

Moh 2008/10/20

Hi,
It works great!
only one question, how can i install the Asian language pack for Acrobat reader?
i downloaded the package from Adobe website but i can not manage to install it. i need to read some chinese pdf files,

Thanks

Michael 2008/10/31

> What’s the point? I’m genuinely curious: is
> there anything that Acrobat Reader does
> better than Evince?

I have at least a dozen PDFs that Evince can’t display at all. I have about two dozen more that Evince goes all cockeyed over when graphics are displayed. Evince also can’t fill out e-forms and run scripts.

So yes. There are things Acrobat Reader can do that Evince can’t. F/OSS is not a panacea, no matter how many mantras you chant.

Xanimedes 2008/11/07

Same instructions except change hardy for intrepid and it installs acrobat on 8.10.

Remember:
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Erik 2008/11/23

I´m having problems installing adobe and keep getting this error…please help I am a complete newbie
The following NEW packages will be installed:
acroread
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/29.5MB of archives.
After this operation, 73.9MB of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database … 127026 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking acroread (from …/acroread_8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.04.1_i386.deb) …
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/acroread_8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.04.1_i386.deb (–unpack):
trying to overwrite `/usr/bin/acroread’, which is also in package adobereader-enu
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/acroread_8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.04.1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Christer Edwards Post author2008/11/24

@Erik – sounds like its conflicting with a currently installed package, acroread-enu. You could try to remove that one first and then try your installation again.

sudo apt-get remove acroreader-enu

Erik 2008/11/24

thank you so much Christer for responding so quickly. unfortunately, I still receive the same error.

baba khatri 2008/11/24

your said acrobat version is 7.0 can you please update me regarding it

Thanks

baba khatri 2008/11/27

this wall in installing acrobat version 7 can you people please update regarding it

Thanks
baba

Phil Smith 2008/11/30

Nice, but parts of Adobe reader do not work. Specifically,

view > read out loud

does not work. I edit alot of manuscripts, and having this feature is essential to “hear” what is actually written. Adobe really needs to have this feature enabled! How do I enable it?

Thanks,
Phil Smith
Duluth, GA

Matt B (Thanet Star) 2008/12/15

I followed your tutoiral and it worked like a dream. Sadly the install lacked the plugins to read the companies house f’ed up filing PDF so I’m no nearer actually using it.

Thanks though.

talha 2008/12/22

thanks !

cesar 2009/01/02

obrigado, thanks…

tlg 2009/01/15

Thanks for a great HowTo.

Re Additional Plugins for editing documents.
If you open Synaptic Package Manager and search for ‘acroread’ after the installation, it shows that the base package has been installed, and lists several additional plugins, including one specifically for editing documents.

Install the plugins for the additional functions.

Note however that Acroreader 8 does not allow saving of completed forms, only printing or emailing.

Sam 2009/01/19

The official Adobe Reader *.deb installation package can be downloaded directly from adobe.com @

http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/

In the ‘Select an Operating System’ drop down menu, select ‘Linux – x86 (.deb)’. You can also select the language of your choice here.

Robin 2009/11/04

Keep in mind, I am 3 days old with Unbuntu.

I tried the one at the top of the page kept getting error message. Then tried this link, keep getting this message: Only one software management tool is allowed to run at the same time. Please close the other application e.g. 'Update Manager, 'Aptitude' or 'Synaptic' first.

To my knowledge, I don't have anything open, I shut down the computer to start over but keep getting the same error. Is there something I'm missing. Could you email: [email protected]

John 2009/01/29

50 megs? Why on Gods green earth is it so big?

Grand Pa 2009/01/31

Thanks man it was great 🙂

John 2009/02/02

The setup worked great and allowed me to get good copies of w-2 that didn’t display correctly in Document Viewer. Need to add that last step about right clicking on pdf file and choosing other and inputting /usr/bin/acroread so the app will be used with pdf files

Chet 2009/02/06

The install worked flawlessly. All I did was follow your 3 simple steps at the beginning of this page and wait for Ubuntu to do the rest. Nice job.

Thanks!!!!!!!

Luis Vargas 2009/02/12

Works fine !!!!
thx

anmol 2009/02/13

thanks!!!
nicely written and simple tutorial 🙂

rajnox 2009/02/21

thx a lot buddy!

Priyam 2009/03/02

It works fine. thanks a lot.

StirliQ 2009/03/03

These instructions worked fabulously!!! Thanks so much. I’ll be passing this info on to others.

Albert 2009/03/08

Just want to say thank you

your procedure worked flawlessly for me too

Werdemup 2009/06/06

Thanks…working on Jaunty Jackalope

oliTwist 2009/06/25

any idea how to down load for hte ubuntu 9.x?

TomW 2009/07/14

Thanks a load. I needed this first thing today, and did not feel capable of independent thought.

Pam 2009/07/30

i can't believe you are going all this computer stuff

how did you get to pecos

Jnanesh 2010/01/12

Thanks

Christer Edwards Post author2010/01/15

These instructions have been updated for Ubuntu 9.10. After Ubuntu 9.04 Medibuntu no longer hosts the acroread package. Please see Install Adobe PDF Reader on Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” for updated instructions.

maxim 2010/01/17

Tried installing acroread on 8.04 64-bit and receive the following message:

“Package acroread is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package acroread has no installation candidate”

any suggestions?
thanks.