How can I properly defer pdf-tools?

[alienbogart]

Runtime Environment

• MX Linux 18
• GNU Emacs 27.0.50
• Evil version 1.2.14
• .emacs.d
• packages
• use-package: 20181119.2350
• pdf-tools: 20190129.1822

Issue

With the configuration,

(use-package pdf-tools
  :defer t
  :init
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.pdf\\'" . pdf-view-mode)))

I get the following error whenever I try to open a PDF file:

File mode specification error: (void-function pdf-view-mode)

If I remove the deferring it opens PDFs normally, but I get a huge loss in performance. Other modes work fine with deferring, what's going on here?

[conao3]

Please try :mode instead of :init.

(use-package pdf-tools
  :mode ("\\.pdf\\'" . pdf-view-mode))

[skangas]

@conao3 answered this question, so I'm closing this issue now.