PDF.js

PDF.js is a Portable Document Format (PDF) viewer that is built with HTML5.

PDF.js is community-driven and supported by Mozilla Labs. Our goal is to create a general-purpose, web standards-based platform for parsing and rendering PDFs.

Contributing

PDF.js is an open source project and always looking for more contributors. To get involved, visit:

• Issue Reporting Guide
• Code Contribution Guide
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Good Beginner Bugs
• Projects

Feel free to stop by #pdfjs on irc.mozilla.org for questions or guidance.

Getting Started

Online demo

• Modern browsers: https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/web/viewer.html

• Older browsers: https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/es5/web/viewer.html

Browser Extensions

Firefox

PDF.js is built into version 19+ of Firefox.

Chrome

• The official extension for Chrome can be installed from the Chrome Web Store. This extension is maintained by @Rob--W.
• Build Your Own - Get the code as explained below and issue gulp chromium. Then open Chrome, go to Tools > Extension and load the (unpackaged) extension from the directory build/chromium.

Getting the Code

To get a local copy of the current code, clone it using git:

$ git clone https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js.git
$ cd pdf.js

Next, install Node.js via the official package or via nvm. You need to install the gulp package globally (see also gulp's getting started):

$ npm install -g gulp-cli

If everything worked out, install all dependencies for PDF.js:

$ npm install

Finally, you need to start a local web server as some browsers do not allow opening PDF files using a file:// URL. Run:

$ gulp server

and then you can open:

• http://localhost:8888/web/viewer.html

Please keep in mind that this requires an ES6 compatible browser; refer to Building PDF.js for usage with older browsers.

It is also possible to view all test PDF files on the right side by opening:

• http://localhost:8888/test/pdfs/?frame

Online setup with a single click

It's recommended to follow [Getting the Code] above, however you can also use Gitpod (a free online VS Code like IDE). With a single click it will launch a ready to use workspace, with all the dependencies pre-installed and the web server running, so that you can start coding straight away.

Building PDF.js

In order to bundle all src/ files into two production scripts and build the generic viewer, run:

$ gulp generic

This will generate pdf.js and pdf.worker.js in the build/generic/build/ directory. Both scripts are needed but only pdf.js needs to be included since pdf.worker.js will be loaded by pdf.js. The PDF.js files are large and should be minified for production.

Using PDF.js in a web application

To use PDF.js in a web application you can choose to use a pre-built version of the library or to build it from source. We supply pre-built versions for usage with NPM and Bower under the pdfjs-dist name. For more information and examples please refer to the wiki page on this subject.

Including via a CDN

PDF.js is hosted on several free CDNs:

• https://www.jsdelivr.com/package/npm/pdfjs-dist
• https://cdnjs.com/libraries/pdf.js
• https://unpkg.com/pdfjs-dist/

Learning

You can play with the PDF.js API directly from your browser using the live demos below:

• Interactive examples

More examples can be found in the examples folder. Some of them are using the pdfjs-dist package, which can be built and installed in this repo directory via gulp dist-install command.

For an introduction to the PDF.js code, check out the presentation by our contributor Julian Viereck:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv15UY-4Fg8

More learning resources can be found at:

• https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/wiki/Additional-Learning-Resources

The API documentation can be found at:

• https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/api/

Questions

Check out our FAQs and get answers to common questions:

• https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions

Talk to us on IRC (Internet Relay Chat):

• #pdfjs on irc.mozilla.org

File an issue:

• https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/issues/new

Follow us on twitter: @pdfjs

• https://twitter.com/pdfjs