Software Alternatives & Reviews

xournal VS Okular

Compare xournal VS Okular and see what are their differences

xournal

Lightweight notetaking and sketching app.

Okular

Okular is a universal document viewer based developed by KDE.
  • xournal Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-02-25
  • Okular Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-02

xournal

Categories
  • Note Taking
  • Task Management
  • Todos
  • Personal Productivity
Website xournal.sourceforge.net  

Okular

Categories
  • PDF Tools
  • PDF Readers And Editors
  • PDF Editor
  • eBook Reader
Website okular.kde.org  

xournal videos

Xournal: Annotate, Edit, Handwrite, Comment & Highlight on PDF

More videos:

  • Review - Xournal and OneNote - An Overview
  • Review - Xournal on Ubuntu Precise Pangolin 12.04

Okular videos

okular, program for annotating your books in linux

More videos:

  • Review - Review: Okular || Awesome PDF Viewer || Best PDF Viewer that I have tried yet.
  • Review - Okular Document Viewer vs Atril Document Viewer

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to xournal and Okular)
Note Taking
100 100%
0% 0
PDF Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Task Management
100 100%
0% 0
PDF Readers And Editors
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare xournal and Okular

xournal Reviews

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Okular Reviews

10 Best PDF Expert Alternatives for Various Tasks in 2022
Verdict: Okular is an open source and can be used free, which is probably its main advantage. At the same time, its basic functionality is meant to be not only highly competitive with PDF Expert but rather overcomes it because the letter can be used only under paid subscription. This PDF Expert alternative is one of the most all-in-one PDF readers, which is compatible not...
Source: fixthephoto.com
8 Best eBook Readers for Linux
Okular is another open-source and cross-platform document viewer developed by KDE and is shipped as part of the KDE Application release.
Source: itsfoss.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Okular should be more popular than xournal. It has been mentiond 44 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

xournal mentions (6)

  • Ask HN: When did you stop using printers and why?
    I do the using Xournal [1] which is tailor-made for creating annotations. It leaves the PDF as is, saving your edits to a sidecar file (*.xoj) which when loaded pulls in the original PDF. It exports edited documents to 'real' PDFs with selectable text etc. [1] https://xournal.sourceforge.net/ (packaged by most distributions). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Is there good way to apply a hand written signature to a pdf in linux?
    If you don't mind the signature being raster (not vector), I've used Xournal for this in the past. It's extremely lightweight and easy. Just open the PDF file with Xournal, draw the signature, and then export it to PDF (Control + E). This will not rasterise the PDF itself (to the best of my knowledge), but rather just superimposes a layer containing your signature on top of the original PDF. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • The Xournal ++ app
    Xournal++ exists since 2013. Maybe you typoed and by your comment about abandoning you were referring to Xournal without the ++? The Xournal website even suggests to try Xournal++. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Adobe Acrobat not provided by the university, how do you read/edit PDFs?
    Xournal works pretty well for me on GNU/Linux. You just have to turn on the "Legacy PDF Export" option. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Looking for a journal-type program that I can write notes and stuff in that stores it like a book, rather than in individual txt files
    If by "writing" you mean with a stylus on a tablet, Xournal. Source: almost 3 years ago
View more

Okular mentions (44)

  • Signing PDFs
    If you mean signing as in "signing with your handwritten signature", you could use Okular () which easily allows you to do that. Filling out forms also works nicely. Source: 3 months ago
  • Alexandria: A minimalistic cross-platform eBook reader
    I was in a similar position lately until I found Okular. Have you tried it? https://okular.kde.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Help with PDF's
    I would try Okular first, though, which is free and open source: https://okular.kde.org/. Source: 9 months ago
  • EPUB 3.3 becomes a W3C recommendation
    KDE's okular might be a good choice. I haven't personally used it for epub but I know it supports it. https://okular.kde.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Are there any good PDF viewers for large (10Mb+) datasheets that can save search results in the actual PDF, and take notes on the PDF?
    I use okular, don't think it has web export though. Source: 10 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing xournal and Okular, you can also consider the following products

Xournal++ - Xournal++ is a handwriting notetaking software with PDF annotation support. Written in C++ with GTK3, supporting Linux (e.g. Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, SUSE), macOS and Windows 10. Supports pen input fr...

Sumatra PDF - Sumatra PDF is a slim PDF/DjVu/EPUB/XPS/CHM/CBR/CBZ/MOBI viewer for Windows.

OneNote - Get the OneNote app for free on your tablet, phone, and computer, so you can capture your ideas and to-do lists in one place wherever you are. Or try OneNote with Office for free.

Foxit Reader - Foxit Reader is a free and light-weight multi-platform PDF document viewer.

GoodNotes - GoodNotes lets you take notes and annotate PDF documents.

Evince - Evince is a document viewer for multiple document formats: PDF, Postscript, djvu, tiff, dvi, XPS...