PDF Scholar

PDF Scholar replaces the browser's built-in PDF viewer with a reader and annotator for the documents you work through rather than skim: research articles, reports, books. The window is nearly all page — one slim toolbar carries the tools, and everything else stays out of the way until called, including the optional AI assistant. Open a PDF and it becomes an ordinary browser tab in the PDF Scholar viewer instead of the browser's basic reader. Make your browser your default PDF app and local PDFs open here too. READING • Smooth scrolling; zoom centres on the cursor or pinch point; fit width or page • Day, Sepia and two Night themes, with contrast adjustable per theme • Page rotation, two-page spread, and a full-screen presentation mode • Split view: two columns of the same document, each with its own page, zoom and rotation • Table of contents, thumbnails and bookmarks • Reading positions and recent files are remembered • Keyboard shortcuts are listed in one map and can be rebound or reset SEARCH Both modes live in one search bar, a tab apart. • By words: match case, whole word, a results list with excerpts, and every match marked on the page • By meaning: describe a topic in your own words and get the passages that discuss it, ranked (uses the assistant's key) ANNOTATION Selecting text opens the annotation menu at the selection; every mark is listed in a panel beside the document. • A notes panel lists every mark by page, with search and filters; comments are edited directly in the list — with export to Word, Markdown or HTML • Comments in the margin: notes shown as visible text beside the page, and an export that sets them in a widened margin, numbered at their anchors • Highlight, underline, strikeout and squiggly; pen and marker with hold-to-straighten; shapes, sticky notes and free text • With a stylus, the pen draws while a finger scrolls; pen pressure varies the line width (beta) and is preserved in the saved file • The text tool uses the PDF's standard typefaces — Helvetica, Times or Courier, bold and italic • A signature can be drawn once and stamped where needed; it is stored locally (placing a signature is not the same as digitally signing a document) • Password-protected documents open, can be annotated, and keep their protection when saved • Colour, thickness and opacity are set per tool and remembered between sessions • Existing marks can be adjusted rather than redrawn: the ends of a highlight, the corner of a shape • Marks are saved into the PDF as standard annotations, so they open correctly in other PDF readers AI ASSISTANT (optional, bring your own key) • Answers cite their sources: each claim links to the passage it came from • Structured article summaries; explain, simplify, critique or define selected text • A figure or region can be cropped into the chat and asked about • The assistant can open in its own tab; a citation click still goes to the passage in the tab showing the document • Eight major AI services are supported, one key field each, alongside any endpoint that speaks the standard chat-completions API — including a local model server, which needs no key. The providers are listed on the project page. Requests go directly to the provider you chose; with a local model the document never leaves the machine Free and open source (MIT). No account, no tracking, no ads. Everything works offline except the optional AI, which uses your own key.