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Accepted
yayu
Asked: 2011-05-17 12:08:33 +0800 CST

How to open a PDF file from terminal?

  • 772

I used to work on the Mac terminal before and I used: 

open file2open.pdf

and the PDF file would be opened on preview or whatever my default viewer was. When I use it in the terminal in Ubuntu I get this error message: 

Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console
command-line

13 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Most desktop environments (generic)

    xdg-open file2open.xxx

    GNOME (generic)

    • until Xenial (16.04):

      gvfs-open file2open.xxx

    • starting with Artful (17.10):

      gio open file2open.xxx

    (xxx = some file extension). With this command the default app for xxx will be invoked (for example evince if you want to open PDF).

    Application-specific

    • Using Evince, GNOME’s default document viewer:

      evince file2open.pdf

    • Using Okular, KDE’s default document viwer:

      okular file2open.pdf
    • 274

  2. You can also use:

    xdg-open foo.pdf

    xdg-open works in Gnome, KDE, xfce, LXDE and perhaps on other desktops.

    You can put an alias in your ~/.bash_aliases:

    alias open=xdg-open
    • 103

  3. For all those lost Mac users in Ubuntu-land ..

    Edit your .bashrc file, and add:

    alias open='gnome-open'

    Then you can just use:

    open file2open.pdf
    • 22

  4. If you want to view PDF within Terminal (Command Line Interface), try to use zathura.

    Install Zathura sudo apt-get install zathura -y.

    To view a PDF file just run => zathura /path/to/xxx.pdf

    BTW: zathura requires X11 anyway, it doesn't work on Servers with no X installed.

    • 11

  5. if you have Document Viewer installed type the following command:

    evince Name_of_pdf_file

    if it is not already installed you can install it firstly using the following command:

    sudo apt-get install evince
    • 11

  6. if the pdf is simple...

    pdftotext -layout file2open.pdf - | more

    We can use this in text mode, ssh, etc.

    • 11

  7. You can also use

    ooffice filename.pdf

    to open your file in open office.

    • 3

  8. The Z shell (zsh) has suffix based alias (-s), these allow you to set up a file association between a file extension like .jpg and a suitable application like xreader:

    alias -s pdf='xreader'

    With an alias like that you just need to type the file name and hit ↵ Return, e.g.:

    file.pdf
    • 3

  9. In Ubuntu 17.04 you case use this:

    gio open <file.pdf>

    • 3

  10. I personally use a shell script:

    $ cat pdf
#! /bin/bash

gnome-open ${1:-*.pdf}

    When you call pdf it will open all pdfs in the current directory, specify which pdf by supplying an argument. I have many directories containing but one pdf file (e.g. so many LaTeX directories) so only having to write pdf saves me quite some time and keystrokes.

    • 1