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In the file manager PCManFM version 0.9.10 (in the Debian Wheezy repositories) thumbnails are generated for images but not for other file types such as PDFs and videos. Does this version of PCManFM have support for other thumbnails and if so, how do I enable it?

I have the PDF reader Evince installed and there is a PDF thumbnailer file in /usr/share/thumbnailers:

$ cat /usr/share/thumbnailers/evince.thumbnailer 
[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=evince-thumbnailer
Exec=evince-thumbnailer -s %s %u %o
MimeType=application/pdf;application/x-bzpdf;application/x-gzpdf;application/x-xzpdf;application/postscript;application/x-bzpostscript;application/x-gzpostscript;image/x-eps;image/x-bzeps;image/x-gzeps;application/x-dvi;application/x-bzdvi;application/x-gzdvi;image/vnd.djvu;image/tiff;application/x-cbr;application/x-cbz;application/x-cb7;application/x-cbt;application/oxps;application/vnd.ms-xpsdocument;

Still, there are no thumbnails for PDFs in PCManFM.

August Karlstrom
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1 Answers1

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UPDATE for PCManFM v. 0.9.10

External thumbnailer support was introduced in PCManFM only from 1.0 version (link), so in order to use packages below you need newer version. Versions <1.0 have only basic thumbnail support for image files.

For version >=1.0:

As Arch wiki describes:

PCManFM supports image thumbnails out of the box. However, in order to view thumbnails of other file types, PCManFM uses the information provided in the files located at /usr/share/thumbnailers. The packages which provide a thumbnailer usually add the corresponding .thumbnail file at /usr/share/thumbnailers. For example, in order to get thumbnails for OpenDocument files, you may install libgsf from the official repositories. For video files' thumbnails, the package ffmpegthumbnailer is required. For PDF files, you may install evince from the official repositories, which provides evince-thumbnailer and the corresponding file at /usr/share/thumbnailers.

List of packages for thumbnail previews:

tumbler: Image files. This must also be installed to expand thumbnailing capabilities to other file types
poppler-glib or evince: Adobe .pdf files
ffmpegthumbnailer: Video files
freetype2: Font files
libgsf: .odf files
raw-thumbnailer: .raw files
kirill-a
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  • Thanks for the reply. Evince is installed (see updated question) but still there are no PDF thumbnails in PCManFM. Any clues? – August Karlstrom Jan 08 '15 at 13:52
  • There's also filesize limit for thumbnails, you can disable it by going in the menu Edit > Preferences > Display. At the bottom, change the value of "Do not generate thumbnails for file exceeding this size" from 2000 KB to a larger size. – kirill-a Jan 08 '15 at 14:13
  • And for .pdf you can also try to install `poppler` instead of `evince`. – kirill-a Jan 08 '15 at 14:56
  • @kirill-a, if you are simply copy and pasting an answer, please cite its source. Upstream: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pcmanfm#Thumbnail_support – thiagowfx Jan 08 '15 at 15:18
  • @kirill-a I have set the maximum file size to the maximum value (32 MB) and my test PDF is only 64 KB. Still there is no thumbnail generated in PCManFM. – August Karlstrom Jan 08 '15 at 15:20
  • @AugustKarlstrom can you please try to install `tumbler` package and recheck thumbnails after restart? – kirill-a Jan 09 '15 at 15:52
  • @kirill-a Thanks for the suggestion. I installed `tumbler` and restarted X but still there are no thumbnails for e.g. PDFs or .MOV files in PCManFM. – August Karlstrom Jan 09 '15 at 22:00
  • @AugustKarlstrom Can you manually add entries of mime types to `evince.thumbnailer`: `application/x-pdf;image/pdf;` Also, have you tried poppler instead of evince? – kirill-a Jan 10 '15 at 15:59
  • @kirill-a Adding the mime types made no difference (and all my PDFs have mimetype `application/pdf`). I have a few `libpoppler*` packages installed but there is no package called simply `poppler`. Which one do PCManFM need? – August Karlstrom Jan 11 '15 at 10:21
  • I believe `libpoppler-glib8` or `libpoppler19`. I see whole package is in source packages [link](https://packages.debian.org/source/wheezy/poppler) so you can try to build it [manual](https://wiki.debian.org/SourcePackage). – kirill-a Jan 11 '15 at 15:10
  • But actually I have tried to install pcmanfm 1.2.0 and after installing evince thumbnailes appeared. Is evince your default application for pdf? Also I found that wheezy has v0.9.10 with "Basic thumbnail support", may be updating him could help? You can download .deb package [here](http://pcmanfm.sourceforge.net/download.html) – kirill-a Jan 11 '15 at 15:46
  • @kirill-a Yes, I have both `libpoppler-glib8` and `libpoppler19` installed. You are probably right in that "basic thumbnail support" means only thumbnails for image files. – August Karlstrom Jan 11 '15 at 19:00
  • @kirill-a I prefer to compile from source instead of installing a `.deb` package. I first tried to compile `libfm-1.2.3` (which is `pcmanfm-1.2.3` depends on) but for some reason `make install` fails with a lot of undefined references to various `fm-` identifiers. It may not be worth the trouble. At least we seem to have discovered the limitations of the Debian Wheezy version of PCManFM. – August Karlstrom Jan 11 '15 at 19:22
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    @AugustKarlstrom You probably wouldn't succeed with .deb too because of unmet dependencies. I tried to install old version from debian repo, but I got errors in dependencies. Then I installed Debian on vm and can confirm that pdf thumbnails don't work indeed there. – kirill-a Jan 12 '15 at 09:05
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    @AugustKarlstrom I found that external thumbnailer support was introduced in PCManFM only from 1.0 version. [link](http://blog.lxde.org/?p=937) So it can't be helped with 0.9.10. I hope this answers your question. – kirill-a Jan 16 '15 at 07:41
  • @kirill-a Thanks for the information. If you turn your "can't be done" comment into an answer I can accept it. – August Karlstrom Jan 16 '15 at 07:49
  • @AugustKarlstrom I edited my answer. – kirill-a Jan 16 '15 at 08:12
  • @AugustKarlstrom courtesy ping – kirill-a Jan 16 '15 at 20:20