Open pdf file in emacs with customized pdf viewer

Abstract: Customize pdf viewer in emacs.

After updating my emacs to 29.1 version, I found the pdf viewer is not working well. These days, I will read a lot of papers in pdf format. So it is necessary to solve the pdf viewer problem in my emacs workflow.

My solution is like following:

(after! org
  (add-to-list 'org-file-apps
               '("\\.pdf\\'" . (lambda (file link)
                                 (call-process "zathura" nil 0 nil "--mode" "fullscreen" file)))))

(setq bibtex-completion-pdf-open-function (lambda (file)
                                            (call-process "zathura" nil 0 nil "--mode" "fullscreen" file)))

The key point is to create a function to open pdf file through zathura (or any other pdf viewer you like). For example, the value of bibtex-completion-pdf-open-function is default as find-file, which is a build-in pdf viewer in emacs. On org-mode, the value is named org-file-apps.

So it is easy to create the customized function, for example,

(lambda (file) (call-process "zathura" nil 0 nil "--mode" "fullscreen" file))