The Portable Document Format (PDF) is quite a commonly used format for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. The beauty of this format is it can maintain the fidelity of a document to its original while making it accessible in the internet. To read or view the PDF files received or downloaded, users normally use the free viewer, Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can download from the Adobe site. In fact, it is not necessary to be so obsessed with using Adobe Acrobat Reader to read PDF files. Besides Adobe Acrobat Reader, there are many reader or viewer tools available in the market. Adobe Acrobat Reader takes a longer time to open PDF files. You may get frustrated or irritated especially if your PDF file is huge in size. You also need to wait for an annoying splash window to disappear in order to open your PDF file. Other than that, Adobe Acrobat Reader also utilizes a substantial amount of your system’s resources. To enhance your reading experience of PDF files, there are a few PDF readers you probably could try.

Foxit Reader
Foxit Reader is incredibly small in size. The size of this application is approximately 2.55MB. This PDF viewer is free. It allows users to view and print out their PDF documents. Viewers can open their PDF document at blazing speed and it features almost everything Adobe Acrobat Reader has. Users also can use the converter feature in Foxit Reader to convert the PDF document to its original document. The latest Foxit Reader 2.3 has included a multimedia player feature allowing Foxit users to enjoy the audio/video elements found in the PDF file. Users can download Foxit Reader via the link here. Foxit Reader works well with Windows Me/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

Cool PDF Reader
This “Cool” application is the world’s smallest PDF viewer/reader with only 626KB in size. This tiny application does not require a lengthy installation process. Users could just download the file, unzip it and run it. Cool PDF Reader can view, print and even convert the PDF documents to TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS. It supports PDF files of all versions and works in 68 different languages. It can also do slide shows of PDF document with full screen. Download link for Cool PDF Reader.

PDFescape
PDFescape is a free online PDF reader, editor, form filler and also form designer. Users can use it to read PDF documents and even edit PDF forms. With PDFescape, users can fill in PDF forms, add texts and graphics, add links or add new form fields. To use Adobe Acrobat to edit a PDF form, it costs you $299. However, PDFescape just do it for you for free.

PDF Hammer
PDF Hammer is another Free online PDF application. Besides functioning as a reader, PDF Hammer also allows users to edit PDF documents. Users can merge or combine PDF files together, rearrange, reorder and delete pages, lock your PDF files with password-based security and add/edit document information (metadata) fields, including author, title, subject and keywords.