253

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
8
  • 26
    Ubuntu is not Mac (just pointing that out).
    – RolandiXor
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 21:24
  • 2
    @Roland but mac claims to be a unix based system, so I assumed the terminal would behave the same atleast
    – yayu
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 22:47
  • 17
    Linux is not Unix.
    – RolandiXor
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 0:44
  • 23
    Linux is what Unix wanted to be, when it was growing up.
    – david6
    Commented Nov 20, 2011 at 21:51
  • 1
    You can use fbi (Linux frame buffer image viewer) apt-get -y install fbi fbgs arch.pdf man fbgs for color and resolutions.
    – user195833
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 21:45

13 Answers 13

Reset to default
285

Most desktop environments on modern systems (generic)

open file2open.xxx

OR

xdg-open file2open.xxx

GNOME

  • 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
8
  • 1
    So there is absolutely no way to view the text of a pdf file inside the terminal? With the pictures removed or converted to ASCII art?
    – Vorac
    Commented Nov 14, 2013 at 12:27
  • 8
    That is another question. You can view with less. Example: less my-file.pdf
    – desgua
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 21:34
  • 2
    when using evince your document closes after you close the terminal. xdg-open per the elmicha's answer worked wll for me.
    – Jon49
    Commented Oct 30, 2014 at 4:11
  • 1
    For gnome (3) this needs libgnome2-bin which is not installed by default.
    – Lode
    Commented Nov 17, 2015 at 13:57
  • 1
    evince file2open.pdf is simple way for the same.
    – Vikrant
    Commented Mar 9, 2017 at 7:01
105

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
2
  • 2
    +1. This is what chrome for one uses. It supports URIS as well (e.g. xdg-open irc://...). Pretty cool.
    – crazy2be
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 23:59
  • 3
    this is the proper answer not the one above, and this will work with all modern DEs.
    – OneOfOne
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 4:57
22

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
2
  • Does not work on Linux Mint with Cinnamon. `xdg-open' is the way to go.
    – Cain
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 2:07
  • on mint either xdb-open file.pdf or xreader file.pdf
    – zzapper
    Commented Nov 26, 2017 at 22:34
15

if the pdf is simple...

pdftotext -layout file2open.pdf - | more

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

11

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.

2
  • Works great and still nicely updated on github.
    – james-see
    Commented Nov 12, 2018 at 2:00
  • zathura doesn't display in the current terminal (Gnome), but opens its own window? A GTK application?
    – user598527
    Commented Jun 2, 2022 at 9:20
11

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
1
  • 1
    You could add on how to install it when it isn't
    – MadMike
    Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 9:51
3

You can also use

ooffice filename.pdf

to open your file in open office.

0
3

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
1
  • The zsh shell has suffix based alias (-s) these allow you to set up a file association between a file extension e.g. jpg and a suitable application say xnview
    – zzapper
    Commented Nov 27, 2017 at 8:29
3

In Ubuntu 17.04 you case use this:

gio open <file.pdf>

1
  • the command gio is not available in Ubuntu, at least on 16.04
    – luisgonzalez
    Commented Jan 30, 2018 at 12:58
1

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.

0

You can define the following function in your ~/.bashrc

open () {
     read -p "Enter File Name: " ; xdg-open "$REPLY"
}
1
  • open () { read -p "Enter File /location/Name: " ; ''xdg-open $REPLY'' }
    – user277818
    Commented May 4, 2014 at 13:07
0

Too open with Libre office use:

loffice <file.pdf>

or

soffice <file.pdf>

or

Goplay -

gooffice <file.pdf>
0

You can also type:

firefox file_name.pdf

This will open your pdf in firefox browser.

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