Public bug reported: Ubuntu 25.04 substituted "papers" for the previous default PDF viewer (i.e. the program run by /usr/bin/xdg-open FILE.pdf). I think evince was the old default.
"papers" has serious usability problems: 1. No "Page Fit" option There is no "Page Fit" option (that I could find), so pressing page-Down or page-Up keys displays parts of multiple pages (depending on exactly how many pixels high the window viewport is). You can manually scale (using e.g. control-mousewheel, if you have that on your mouse) to fit, but the step size is not always a sub-multiple of the window pixel height, so it may or may not be possible to scale the image to see exactly one page (if it is not exactly one page, then the page-Up/Down keys jump to increasingly wrong positions). And the scale does not seem to be sticky, so you have to fiddle with this every time. 2. There is a "Continuious" option in the 3-dot menu which is ON by default. Turning it off does not make the program let you step through pages one at a time (like in evince). Instead, it locks the current page and prevents moving to any other page. Since the scaling is not adjusted to fit the screen, it is unclear what this function is intended for. 3. The man page refers readers to http://www.gnome.org/projects/papers/ but there is no such page (404 error). A sample multi-page PDF file is attached. STEPS TO REPRODUCE: 1. Log in on a Wayland session (dont' know if that matters, but it's what I used) 2. Run "papers sample.pdf" # the attached demo file 3. Press page-Down multiple times (result: Shows parts of two pages at once, or only part of one page) 4. [Do not resize the window] Use Control-scrollwheel to try to make exactly one page fit in the window without clipping horizontally. (result: Only possible if the aspect ratio of the window allows it, which is unknowable and depends on what is in the PDF file; this is why the program has to provide a "Page Fit" function which adds dead space above or below the page image if necessary to allow the page to fit horizontally while displaying exactly one page at a time.) 5. 3-dot-menu->(uncheck 'Continuous') 6. Try to advance to the next or previous page (result: not possible) Display: 3840 x 2160 ("4K") with Scale set to 100% $ lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu 25.04 Release: 25.04 $ papers --version Papers 48.0<no newline> ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 25.04 Package: papers 48.0-1ubuntu1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.14.0-34.34-generic 6.14.11 Uname: Linux 6.14.0-34-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.32.0-0ubuntu5.3 Architecture: amd64 CasperMD5CheckResult: pass CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME Date: Wed Oct 22 15:28:38 2025 InstallationDate: Installed on 2025-10-18 (5 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 25.04 "Plucky Puffin" - Release amd64 (20250415.3) SourcePackage: papers UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) ** Affects: papers (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Tags: amd64 apparmor apport-bug plucky wayland-session -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2129644 Title: No single-page option; broken link to online docs To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/papers/+bug/2129644/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
