Foxit Reader 9.0 major new version released

Foxit Software released Foxit Reader 9.0, a new major version of the company's free PDF reading software for Windows, to the public today.

The new version of the program comes with new features and improvements, and security and stability fixes.

Existing users can run a check for updates with a click on Help > Check for updates. You may download the new version from the Foxit Software website as well, and upgrade existing versions of the program or install it anew instead.

Our last review of Foxit Reader dates back to 2013 and Foxit Reader 6.0.

Foxit Reader 9.0

The new features that Foxit Reader 9.0 comes with can be divided into usability and security features. Users may export digital IDs now, and the Foxit Reader MSI package comes with Enterprise security features such as Windows Information Protection (WIP) and support for Microsoft's PDF V2 IRM specification.

Single-key accelerators, automatic reflow on magnification, a new find command, and bleed mark and overprint simulation are new usability features.

Some of these features need to be enabled before they become available. You need to enable single-key accelerators that improve the accessibility under File > Preferences >  General > Use single-key accelerators to access tools before the feature can be used.

The user manual lists all single-key accelerators that Foxit Reader 9.0 users may use. Most require a single-key tab, some a modifier key. Here is a short list of available single-key accelerators:

• V -- Select
• Z -- Marquee
• H -- Hand
• R -- Select Annotation
• M -- Audio & Video
• Shift-M -- Cycle through multimedia commands
• K -- Stamp
• E -- Replace text
• S -- Sticky note
• Shift-D -- Cycle through drawing markup commands
• X -- Text box
• Page-Up -- Previous Screen
• Page-Down -- Next Screen
• Home -- First page
• End -- Last page
• Arrows -- Scroll
• Shift-L -- Highlight fields in forms
• F10 -- Focus ribbon
• F5 -- Focus document pane
• Ctrl-Shift-Tab -- Move to previous open document tab

Foxit Reader 9.0 supports a hundred or so single-key accelerators in total. Reflow upon navigation is another new usability feature. This is an automatic feature that will "reflow a PDF document" so that it is displayed in a single column matching the width of the document pane so that it can be read without having to scroll horizontally.

Foxit Software improved several features of Foxit Reader in the new version as well. The program's advanced search functionality may highlight all search results in a PDF file for instance, and users may not search for instances that match any of the keywords.

Other improvements include form enhancements, for instance data import from CSV files and the retaining of font properties when copying/pasting text from Microsoft Word, and improvements to the commenting system.

Tip: You can download or view the user manual on this page.

Closing Words

Foxit Reader 9.0 is a powerful PDF reader that opens rather quickly despite its large size. The application is more than just a reader application though, as it supports additional features such as signing or protecting PDFs.

If you just need a lightweight PDF reader, try SumatraPDF instead.

Now You: Which PDF Reader do you use?