Windows 8 to Have Built-in PDF Reader

News
By Marcus Yam
published

No more need for Adobe Reader or even Fox It

WinSuperSite and Within Windows have another new Windows 8 feature to share. Soon, you may no longer need to install any extra software to view that ever popular PDF format, thanks to an integrated PDF reader called Modern Reader that will ship with Windows 8

While almost everyone running Windows these days has Adobe Reader, or some equivalent, Microsoft is building that functionality right into the next OS. Hopefully it will be a lightweight alternative.

Modern Reader also appears to be an early example of the new AppX application package for Windows 8. AppX is a packaged application model for Windows 8 that is much like the one used in Windows Phone 7.

Discuss more about this and other Windows 8 features here!

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
54 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Camikazi
    I sense another EU law suit coming if they do this.
    Reply
  • molo9000
    About time.
    Mac OS has had this for 10 years.
    Reply
  • m3kw9
    lol
    Reply
  • bison88
    Screw the EU and their lawsuits, filing one could end up backfiring on them from consumer backlash. There comes a point and time in every corporation no matter how big or evil they may end up being, where they have to do something to show progress and be innovative regardless of how it may be seen by the government. Honestly, mounting images and reading PDF's should have been standard for an operating system back in Windows Vista, but instead Microsoft is cowering in the past decade since XP as if they fear just that, another lawsuit. Mark my words, if a lawsuit does happen I sure as hell will support Microsoft and not the government in this case. These are standard features not proprietary formats that any company owns the rights to so by adding support to do some basic features you aren't obliterating the need for the market where others can be successful for adding extra features.

    Apple and Linux have got away with murder allowing things that Microsoft would get slammed with monopoly lawsuits with and in return we get a less capable operating system because of it. What did the EU accomplish? Extra browser choices during installation in an age where most Windows users have come to the conclusion that IE is crap? Whoopty-doo EU, thanks for wasting everyones time.
    Reply
  • lukeeu
    bison88Apple and Linux have got away with murder allowing things that Microsoft would get slammed with monopoly lawsuits with and in return we get a less capable operating system because of it. What did the EU accomplish? Extra browser choices during installation in an age where most Windows users have come to the conclusion that IE is crap? Whoopty-doo EU, thanks for wasting everyones time.MacOS, Ubuntu, SuSE, Gentoo, Mandriva and PCLinuxOS are niche systems with marginal maket share so they obviously aren't targeted by anty-monopoly stuff while MS has over 90% market share. Also there are no software parents in EU and people can install MacOS on third party hardware so Apple also doesn't have it easy. Most Linux distros will be happy to add any PDF reader. I've got too choose from 4 or 5 under Gentoo.
    Reply
  • Bolbi
    IIRC, Firefox 5 is also likely to have an integrated PDF reader. I'll be glad if a lightweight PDF reader makes it into both products.
    Reply
  • greenrider02
    THANK GOD, because seriously, Adobe is awful.
    Reply
  • tonydu
    I remember when Microsoft included broken postscript in order to discourage Adobe fonts. People blamed the postscript technology. Adobe offered to arrange for engineers to fix Microsoft's implementation, but Microsoft refused. Steve Jobs made the same offer to Microsoft, but Microsoft again refused.

    Anyone who has been in this industry long enough has seen this over and over. Microsoft's intentionally broken postscript. Microsoft's intentionally broken pdf. Microsoft's intentionally broken Java. Microsoft's intentionally broken non-proprietary networking. Microsoft's intentionally broken fonts. The list goes on and on.

    We need to get more public control of companies. This is a symptom of corporate greed without concern for our society. We should restrict the US marketing of products by such companies.
    Reply
  • blackwidow_rsa
    god damn....place is full of eu and apple hippies. Get a life, anybody that should be using things not made by ms already knows how to get it. lucky i don't live in that european nanny state (no im not from the us.)
    Reply
  • omnimodis78
    blackwidow_rsa...lucky i don't live in that european nanny state (no im not from the us.)That "european nanny state" to which you are referring has established a policy that truly takes into account the benefits of the consumers - not the corporations...so, ya, it might be a nanny state to you, but it's the Marry Poppins of a nanny state, and I like that!
    Reply