Since Ubuntu does not have a native way to open PDF documents by default, users will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader for Linux, or some other program capable of opening the documents. The objective of this tutorial is to install Adobe Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa Linux.
The advantage of Acrobat Reader, of course, is that it’s the official program and recommended for reading PDF documents in the way they are intended. However, many other free applications exist for reading PDF documents. You may also be interested in our list of PDF viewers available for Ubuntu 20.04.
Please note that Adobe no longer supports Acrobat Reader for Linux. The latest native Linux version is 9.5.5 dated from 26/04/2013. From this reason you should refrain using/installing Adobe Acrobat Reader to avoid potential vulnerabilities and hacker exploits. You are recommended to consider installation of Adobe Acrobat Reader on Wine.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to install Adobe Acrobat Reader prerequisites
- How to download Adobe Acrobat Reader
- How to install Adobe Acrobat Reader
- How to start Adobe Acrobat Reader
Software Requirements and Conventions Used
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Installed or upgraded Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa |
| Software | Adobe Acrobat Reader |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions | # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Install Adobe Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu 20.04 step by step instructions
- To download Adobe Acrobat Reader open the terminal and enter the following
wgetcommand:$ wget -O ~/adobe.deb ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/unix/9.x/9.5.5/enu/AdbeRdr9.5.5-1_i386linux_enu.deb
- Next, enable
i386architecture:$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 $ sudo apt update
- Install all prerequisites by executing:
$ sudo apt install libxml2:i386 libcanberra-gtk-module:i386 gtk2-engines-murrine:i386 libatk-adaptor:i386
- Now, we are ready to install the actual Adobe Acrobat Reader package downloaded previously:
$ sudo dpkg -i ~/adobe.deb
- To start the Adobe Acrobat Reader use the activities menu to search for
adobeand click on the relevant icon. Or you can find your PDF document in the file browser, right click, press “Open with other application” and find Adobe Acrobat Reader in the list of options.
Launch Adobe Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu 20.04
Accept terms and conditionsAlternatively, you can start the Adobe Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu 20.04 form a command line:
$ acroread
Closing Thoughts
In this tutorial, we saw how to install Adobe Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu Linux 20.04 Focal Fossa. The program can now be used to open PDF documents on your system. You may eventually wish to migrate to a new reader, or use the Windows version with WINE, as Acrobat has become out of date and unsupported on Linux.