Evince vs FastStone Image Viewer

Evince is a free document viewer for Linux desktop users. It opens PDF, PostScript, DjVu, DVI, XPS, OXPS, and Comic Book Archive files, and can display supported documents as full-screen presentations. Interactive forms can be completed, including text fields and scrollable list boxes. For PDFs, Evince can add notes and text highlights; these annotations are limited to PDF files. SyncTeX synchronizes a TeX source file with its resulting PDF. Printing is documented for DVI, DjVu, PDF, PostScript, and TIFF. When opening a password-protected PDF, Evince prompts for its password. It is not a file editor. Some Linux distributions may need the relevant backend package to support every listed format. The project wiki recommends obtaining Evince through the user's Linux distribution and points to packages or source for other download options. The help site includes user documentation and directions for reporting application bugs.

FastStone Image Viewer is a Windows image browser, converter, and editor for individual images and collections. Editing tools include resizing, rotation, cropping, color adjustment, sharpening, blur, Clone Stamp, and Healing Brush. It supports major graphic formats and popular camera RAW formats, including HEIC, WEBP, PDF, SVG, and JPEG XL. The Compare Images feature displays up to four pictures side by side, while batch tools convert and rename collections. Slideshows offer more than 150 transition effects and music. The program can acquire images from scanners and batch scan to PDF, TIFF, JPEG, or PNG. Users can launch external editors from within Image Viewer, and a portable version can run from removable storage. FastStone lists personal and educational use as free and a commercial lifetime license at $34.95 as a one-time purchase, with upgrades free. Another plan listing gives a price of $34.95 a month, so the commercial license terms should be confirmed before purchase. The product is listed for Windows, and FastStone provides technical support by email.