I am looking for a consensus on what is the a great
.pdf viewer for Debian.
I personally just use browser for viewing PDFs. I am not sure chromium has one build-in, but chrome has one build in. Mozilla Firefox has one built-in.
Mozilla has a great OS library for reading PDFs written in javascript. PDF.js
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The default one that came with your distro?
Okular, no question. it’s super fast and never had it crash on me before.
(plus, it’s written in such a way that it’s very energy efficient. being one of kde’s first applications to get a green energy certification)
EDIT:
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That’s such an oddly specific distinction. 
I take it to mean it won’t stutter and bleed my laptop’s battery as I’m scrolling through a complex PDF?
Luke Smith approved ! I actually cames across it in one of his videos.
On Gnome, Document Viewer also opens comic books too, so I have to agree with the default one here !
Works everywhere, but trouble I have seen is loading 500pg pdfs.
chromium CAN view pdf files (at least default chromium on debian), and… it can also re-print (save as .pdf) a DRM protected pdf file, and in the process remove all copy restrictions… very handy
I use okular on Debian by default.
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If you want to simply SEE PDF’s, I personally would just use any browser you have. If you MUST use an external program, Okular is decent with the odd obscure other PDF viewers.
Now, if you want an editor that is paid. Hands down Master PDF Editor.
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Zathura
It use vim key bindings and its really nice. Its lightweight. Well polished and easy to make a conf to customize
Especially if you have a solid terminal based work flow (as all linux users realistically should)… Youll definitely like it
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QPDview personally. Used okular before, but moved to qpdfview for some feature I can’t recall.
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I ended up going with zathura thanks guys!
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When installing Debian I always configure it as it’s going to be a headless server and then I remove the stuff I don’t need then build it up to my liking.
In short, a .pdf viewer did not come with my install.