Ubuntu – How to open a *.pdf in an already existing instance of Okular (independent of in which workspace that instance resides)

kdepdfworkspaces

acroread and qpdfview already perform as desired: if an instance of acroread or qpdfview, resp., is already running this instance will open any pdf files, irrespective of the workspace from which these files are "launched".

Now here's the catch: okular, alas, behaves differently:

"launching" (read: opening) a pdf file from a given workspace will create a new instance of okular in that workspace, unless that particular workspace already has an instance of okular up and running.

Anything I can add to /usr/bin/okular to do the trick?

man okular doesn't give any hints to this and also from within okular I see no indicative option in the native settings.

Best Answer

I recently wanted to have the same functionality. Here is the simplest solution I could find:

Open Okular GUI. Navigate to Settings > Configure Okular. In General, under Program Features, check the 'Open new files in tabs' option. Click Apply. Click OK.

Then on your terminal, run okular file1.pdf file2.pdf fileN.pdf.

That code should open all your files in the same Okular window in different tabs. This method works across folders.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Cannot open any PDF file using Okular

I faced the same problem so I tried the command:

$kbuildsycoca4

but it felt to run, because I needed to install some kde libs. Then I installed such libs typing:

sudo apt-get install kdelibs-bin

After that Okular was able to open PDF's.

Is this a bug? I'm running Linux Mint 17.1 in a fresh installation.

Ubuntu – How to edit a picture into an existing PDF file

My recommendation is Xournal and its actively developed fork, Xournal++. Here are the instructions.

Install (for Xournal):

sudo apt-get install xournal

For Xournal++ you can use either the stable PPA,

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/xournalpp-stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install xournalpp

or the flatpak,

flatpak install flathub com.github.xournalpp.xournalpp

Run xournal or xournal++, click File>Annotate PDF, choose your PDF file.

Now, go to where you need to add your signature and click Tools>Image (or the "Image" toolbar icon), then click where you want to add the image. An image selection dialog appears, select your image.

Xournal's insert image is a great addition but not polished. As soon as you add the image make sure to resize it and move it to where you want. For resize there's no ability to ensure the proportions stay the same. Just eye it. Once you are done, it is in its own layer, which you cannot change. If you don't like how it ends up delete that layer and start again.

One handy thing is that you can use ctrl-c as soon as you resize it and then ctrl-v the next time you need to insert your image. Assuming you want the same size image this will save you some time.

When you are done choose File->Export to PDF to get it back into the PDF format I assume you'll want for sending your signed doc.

Note: A downside to Xournal is the finished document looks like the fonts are converted to an image. Fonts are no longer as crisp. Still it looks better than if you printed and rescanned and is much faster. [Note: in my most recent experience it seems this problem has been solved. Maybe I just got lucky with the particular fonts used. Please leave a comment abt your experience and I'll update accordingly.] This issue seems to be fixed in Xournal++ version 1.0.20.

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Cannot open any PDF file using Okular

Ubuntu – How to edit a picture into an existing PDF file

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