I’ve decided to make this guide due to one of my saddest “let go” from ditching Microsoft Windows, the Sumatra PDF Reader.

Before reading please keep in mind two things:

I’m a new Linux user (been using for almost a year) so any mistake that seems silly may come from that; 1.

English is not my primary language, so any corrections are welcome, i won’t feel offended in any way.

Sumatra PDF has been a part of my life for many years now, i use it on my work pc (Windows), and have used on my personal pc (while i still used windows) as well. Switching to Linux made me realize that Sumatra has no equal to this date (for my specific use). I liked Okular but the right click functions of Sumatra for zooming and panning a document, is, in my opinion, unmatched.

So here is how i managed to use Sumatra on Linux in a way that satisfy my needs and takes advantage of most of Sumatra features.

System used:

OS: Fedora Linux 42 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) x86_64
Kernel: Linux 6.17.8-200.fc42.x86_64
Shell: bash 5.2.37
Display (BOE0C29): 1920x1080 @ 144 Hz (as 1536x864) in 16" [Built-in]
DE: KDE Plasma 6.5.2
WM: KWin (Wayland)
WM Theme: plastik
Theme: Windows (BreezeDark) [Qt], Breeze [GTK3/4]
Icons: breeze-dark [Qt], breeze-dark [GTK3/4]
Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK3/4]
Cursor: breeze (18px)
Terminal: konsole 25.8.3

Installation:

Download the latest Sumatra installer (haven’t tried the portable or pre-release versions) 1.

Install the .exe installer using wine (in my case i just double clicked the .exe installer from my download folder)

You should now be able to open and use it! And get frustrated for not seeing the tabs (although they are there and can be switched using crtl+tab). Don’t worry we’ll fix that.

Configuring it to display the tabs:

Open winecfg, on the Applications tab select Add Application, and browse trough users/yoursillyusername/AppData/Local/SumatraPDF select the SumatraPDF.exe file and open it. 1.

Now on the Applications tab select the SumatraPDF.exe and switch to the Graphics tab. Uncheck the “Allow the window manager to decorate the windows”. Sumatra displaying tabs and the title bar on Linux.

Tips:

You can also set a Special Window Setting to hide the title bar.

Any tips are welcome:

When right clicking a tab and choosing Show in Folder, it opens with wine default and basic explorer.exe, i could not switch to Dolphin. So any help is welcome here.

I hope this guide finds you well and make you feel as welcome as i felt with the guides i’ve encountered when switching OS.