A fast, distraction-free PDF reader built for people who actually read.
Open papers, textbooks, and docs. Annotate them. Track your progress. Pick up exactly where you left off. No cloud. No accounts. No bloat.
Download for Windows or Linux →
Most PDF readers are either too heavy (Acrobat), too bare-bones (browser built-ins), or designed for casual viewing — not serious reading. Reader is built for researchers, students, and anyone who reads long documents and wants to stay focused.
- Reads fast even on large PDFs
- Stays out of your way while reading
- Remembers everything — your position, annotations, progress
- Works fully offline, no account needed
- Multiple layouts — single page, side-by-side spread, or continuous scroll
- Smooth zoom — Ctrl+scroll with instant visual feedback, no lag
- Rotation — rotate pages left or right
- Themes — Classic (light), Dark, Warm, and Blue night modes
- Reading defaults — set your preferred zoom, theme, and layout once; applied to every file you open
- Highlight — select text and mark it in yellow
- Underline — draw underlines across any region
- Sticky notes — drop a note anywhere on the page
- All annotations are saved automatically and persist across sessions
- Tabs — open multiple PDFs side by side
- Library — all your recent files in one place, organized into folders
- Progress tracking — mark pages as read, see your completion per document
- Thumbnails — visual previews in the library (can be disabled for performance)
- Document outline — table of contents sidebar for fast chapter jumping
- Page input — jump to any page directly
- Keyboard shortcuts — navigate without touching the mouse
- Artifact panel — automatically extracts every URL and link from a PDF
- Settings page — dedicated tab for all preferences
- Update checker — check for new versions from inside the app
| Platform | Installer |
|---|---|
| Windows (x64) | PDF.Reader_x64_en-US.msi — recommended |
| Windows (x64) | PDF.Reader_x64-setup.exe — portable |
| Linux (x64) | PDF.Reader_amd64.AppImage — no install needed |
| Linux (x64) | PDF.Reader_amd64.deb — for Debian/Ubuntu |
Windows — Run the .msi or .exe installer and launch Reader from the Start menu.
Linux (AppImage)
chmod +x Reader_amd64.AppImage
./Reader_amd64.AppImageLinux (deb)
sudo dpkg -i Reader_amd64.deb| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Next page | → or Space |
| Previous page | ← |
| Zoom in | Ctrl + or Ctrl Scroll Up |
| Zoom out | Ctrl - or Ctrl Scroll Down |
| Reset zoom | Ctrl 0 |
| Horizontal scroll | Shift Scroll |
pdfium — download the prebuilt binary for your platform from bblanchon/pdfium-binaries and place it in src-tauri/bin/:
| Platform | File |
|---|---|
| Windows | pdfium.dll |
| Linux | libpdfium.so |
npm install
npm run tauri devnpm run tauri buildOutput is in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| UI | React 18 + TypeScript + Vite |
| Desktop shell | Tauri v2 (Rust) |
| PDF rendering | pdfium-render (Rust) + pdf.js |
| Annotations | HTML5 Canvas |
| Persistence | JSON files in app data dir |
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. Open an issue to discuss changes before submitting a PR.
MIT