How to measure a distance on a PDF

Question

Is there a free plug-in for Adobe Reader to measure a distance on a PDF?

Is there another free reader out there that has this?

Answer 1

I am using the free PDF-XChange pdf viewer, and it comes with a measuring tool. Screenshot taken from the free version:

Answer 2

Adobe reader itself has a measure feature under "tools/measure":

The measuring tools are especially useful when you need to know the distances or areas associated with objects in a form or computer-aided design (CAD) drawing... The measuring tools are available to Reader users only if the PDF creator enables measuring functionality.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Reader/8.0/help.html?content=WS58a04a822e3e50102bd615109794195ff-7f91.html

As of this writing, the Linux version is missing the tool. Foxit is a better reader in many ways, but no need to pass on Adobe's reader just because of measure.

Answer 3

Foxit Reader :

check it out here http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/addons.htm it's free, so fast small (no more than 4Mo) and it has a lot of addons including Measure Tools tools.

Includes a distance tool, a perimeter tool, and an area tool that will help you to measure distance, perimeter or area on a PDF page and automatically transform the results into real-world values.