I’ve been using Firefox to view PDFs and it works fine. Recently though I wanted to try something more minimal with vim keybindings. Found two options: Zathura and tdf (terminal pdf viewer).
What I’m curious about is why someone would choose a TUI pdf viewer over a regular one (like Zathura). What are the actual advantages people find in practice. tdf mentions being fast but I wonder if that’s something you’d actually notice day to day?
Also I remember seeing screenshots where PDFs looked transparent or matched the terminal colors. Is that actually a feature of some of these viewers ? Maybe someone uses one here?
Tdf seems relatively popular with 1.4k github stars.


Watch pdf files on remote server using ssh without gui
But you need tdf installed on the server for that right?
I realize I rarely have to do it so I tend to just download and open the pdf, or use X forwarding. Or while using emacs I just open the remote file (which basically downloads and opens I guess).