Monokular

Monokular — because it does one thing and does it well: export PDF pages as images with a preview option.

Contents

• Screenshots
• Features
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Usage (local)
• Build a standalone binary (PyInstaller)
• Install on Arch Linux (AUR)
• Build from source (PKGBUILD)
• Linux desktop integration (manual)
• Requirements

Screenshots

Select pages from a thumbnail grid and export them as images.

Zoom into any page with a full-size preview.

Configure export format, quality, PPI, naming, and more.

Features

• Open PDF files via toolbar, drag & drop, or command line
• Selectable page thumbnails in a responsive grid
• Preview pages with zoom (Ctrl+Click or Preview button)
• Export selected pages as PNG or JPEG
• Configurable quality and PPI (72–1200)
• Remembers window size between sessions

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl+Q — Quit
• Ctrl+Click — Preview a page

Usage (local)

pip install -r requirements.txt
python main.py

Open a PDF from the command line:

python main.py /path/to/file.pdf

Build a standalone binary (PyInstaller)

pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller monokular.spec

The binary will be at dist/monokular.

Install on Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S monokular

Or manually:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/monokular.git
cd monokular
makepkg -si

Build from source (PKGBUILD)

1. Create a source tarball:

tar czf monokular-1.0.0.tar.gz --transform='s,^,monokular-1.0.0/,' \
    main.py requirements.txt monokular.desktop PKGBUILD \
    assets/icon.svg app/*.py

2. Build and install:

makepkg -si

After installation, the following files are placed automatically:

• /usr/bin/monokular — launcher script
• /usr/lib/monokular/ — app files
• /usr/share/applications/monokular.desktop — desktop entry
• /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/monokular.svg — app icon

3. Run:

monokular

Linux desktop integration (manual)

For local (non-packaged) use, copy the desktop file:

cp monokular.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Edit Exec and Icon paths in the desktop file to point to your local install.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• PyQt6
• PyMuPDF