Bug#787896: Upstream said WONTFIX

[Pietro Battiston]

I also was hit by this problem. Two remarks:

- I am afraid this is WONTFIX (or at least RedHat thinks so:
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1180709), because it was
  an intentional change... but you can maybe try to open a bug upstream
  raising the issue (though I doubt that they will listen).

- I was able to solve the problem for me by just changing the buttons
  layout:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout \ ":close"

  Now evince is able to go half-screen on my 1366x768 monitor (but not
  on my 1280x1024 one). You can certainly shrink a bit more by also
  removing the "close" button and/or by switching theme (see
  https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=189333 ) but it will be
  very hard to get down half of a 1024 screen.

(BTW: Peter, as far as I know Okular or Zathura could work for you.)

Pietro