Running this command, on a properly escaped file name: $ okular pdf\ with\ spaces.pdf It tries to open 3 files instead Reproducible: Always
$ touch /tmp/pdf\ with\ spaces.pdf $ okular /tmp/pdf\ with\ spaces.pdf -> error dialog: Could not open /tmp/pdf with spaces.pdf -> Okular recognized only one file, but can't of course open it, because ist is an empty file Tested with kubuntu 12.04 Qt: 4.8.2 / KDE: 4.12.3 / Okular: 0.18.3 and Qt: 4.8.2 / KDE: 4.13.0 / Okular: 0.19.0 + Qt: 4.8.2 / KDE Development Platform: 4.13.60 / Okular: 0.19.60 Not reproducible here.
Works for me, are you using any other option when calling okular? Can you try stashing away your okular config files okularrc and okularpartrc and see if that makes it work? Any other special thing you use and we don't that would make it fail for you but work here?
Found what the problem was. I had run: $ s okular /tmp/file\ with\ spaces.pdf where "s" is: #!/bin/bash $@ &> /var/log/s.log & which removes the slashes...