Forgets "Fit Page Width" option on each click on the index

[Gaëtan de Menten]

Whenever I navigate in a document using the index, the zoom is reset and the "fit page width" option removed.

I don't know if it is a bug or if it was intentional (though I don't see why users would want this "feature") but I find it extremely annoying. I would like to have the "fit page width" option always on...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for your bug. That works fine for me with dapper on an example. Is that specific to a .pdf or does it happen with any of them? Could you attach an example or give an URL to download one? What version of Ubuntu do you use?

[Gaëtan de Menten (gdementen)]

I use dapper.

Up until now, I thought it was happening for all .pdf documents. After some research, I found some documents which don't exhibit the bug.

Here is a link to a zip file containing several pdfs having the problem (try the first pdf in there):
http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/flyspeck.zip

From the sample documents I checked, I *think* it depends whether the document has a graphical "frame" around pages (ie images on the sides -- outside of the normal page area). All the documents I tried which haven't any "frame" worked, while all which have one didn't. But well, of course, it might just a coincidence...

[Gaëtan de Menten (gdementen)]

I'm attaching the pdf, so that you don't have to download the archive and unzip it ;-)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for the example. I've forwarded it upstream: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349433

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

fixed upstream

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

fixed to edgy

[infodroid (infodroid)]

sorry, but this is not fixed yet.

i am still experiencing this problem with ubuntu feisty. i have a pdf which i set my layout to "page width". whenever i click an entry in the index on the left-hand side the layout changes to "best fit".

every time i click a link, i have to change the layout back to page width, my preferred way of reading this particular ebook.

using an example that is already mentioned, if you download flyspeck.zip provided by Gaëtan de Menten, you will notice that "handout2-skills.pdf", among others, will force 125% page layout.

however the first file in this archive "handout1-classes.pdf" has no such problem.

[infodroid (infodroid)]

shall i reopen a bug report or are we staying in this one?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

I've reopened the upstream bug, #121773 is a duplicate with an example

[Marius Gedminas (mgedmin)]

FWIW the index (called "document outline" by the PDF spec) entries define the zoom level, as well as the page to be displayed and the window scroll position on that page. See section 8.2.1 of the PDF reference, available at <http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html>. It could be argued that changing the zoom level when you click on an outline entry is the right thing to do (it's what the document's author specified), although many users will probably find it annoying.

Refreshing the document, however, definitely should not change the zoom level.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug has been fixed upstream now

[Mathias Gug (mathiaz)]

evince (0.9.2-0ubuntu1) gutsy; urgency=low

  * New Features and UI Improvements:
    * Forms support
    * Toolbar editor icons on dragging
  * Bug fixes:
    * Program description translation issue fixed
    * Do not change page after presentation
    * Fix LP: #49340 bug : Forgets "Fit Page Width" option on each click on
      the index
  * debian/rules: add DEB_DESTDIR_evince-gtk to clean target.

 -- Mathias Gug <email address hidden> Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:50:59 +0100

[Michaël Van Dorpe (michael-vandorpe)]

I still see this in Gutsy (updated to today) in evince 2.19.92.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Michaël could you open a new bug with an example attached and a description of easy steps to trigger the bug if you still get it on gutsy?

[JP Vossen (jp-jpsdomain)]

Evince 2.26.0-0ubuntu1 in Jaunty beta LPIA has a regression to this bug. And boy is it annoying. But it's tricky too, it doesn't always happen.

Problems:
1) Evince defaults to "best fit" which is always annoying but even worse on a Netbook screen.
2) When navigating the document using the sidebar, it reverts to "best fit" even if previously changed to "Fix page width"
2.1) It doesn't even remember sections you've already set, Fix it for chapter foo, navigate to chapter bar and it goes to "best fit", navigate back to foo and it stays at "best fit."
3) But it only happens with some documents.
4) View, Continuous/Dual are mutually exclusive options and thus should be displayed as radio buttons, but are instead incorrectly displayed as checkboxes.
4.1) So are View Best Fix/Fit Page Width.
5) Evince should have a "Preferences" page where you can set the default.

Steps to reproduce #1-3:

1) Download http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xlob/dtg/en/en_dtg.zip and unzip it.
2) Open in Evince, it works as expected.

3) Download http://launchpadlibrarian.net/8215270/Sample_report.pdf from bug 121773
4) It's broken as described above.

Steps to reproduce #4, 5: look in the GUI and try setting the options. :-)

[JP Vossen (jp-jpsdomain)]

Oh, I forgot, "best fit" should be renamed "Whole Page" or something, as "best fit" is not a good description.

And I just re-read the section from comment 10 above. Arggg. I see the point about the spec, but I don't care what the PDF author thought, I want it to display the way I want it to (so I can read it on a Netbook), and I want it to stay that way when I set it.

FYI, I just tried epdfview and it does not exhibit this behavior, so I'll just use that instead...

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

JP, please open a new bug and paste all the details above, we don't like to re-open old bugs.
Feel free to mention that it's a regression of this one, though...

[Mcflan (typo)]

This might be similar/duplicate:

 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/286218