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.
PDF.js is an open source project and always looking for more contributors. To get involved checkout:
- Issue Reporting Guide
- Code Contribution Guide
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Good Beginner Bugs
- Priorities
- Attend a Public Meeting
For further questions or guidance feel free to stop by #pdfjs on irc.mozilla.org.
PDF.js is built into version 19+ of Firefox, however one extension is still available:
- Development Version - This version is updated every time new code is merged into the PDF.js codebase. This should be quite stable but still might break from time to time.
- The official extension for Chrome can be installed from the Chrome Web Store. This extension is maintained by @Rob--W.
- Opera has also published an extension for their browser at the Opera add-ons catalog.
- Build Your Own - Get the code as explained below and issue
node make chromium
. Then open Chrome, go toTools > Extension
and load the (unpackaged) extension from the directorybuild/chromium
.
To get a local copy of the current code, clone it using git:
$ git clone git://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js.git
$ cd pdf.js
Next, install Node.js via the official package or via nvm. If everything worked out, run
$ npm install
to install all dependencies for PDF.js.
Finally you need to start a local web server as some browsers do not allow opening PDF files using a file:// URL. Run
$ node make server
and then you can open
It is also possible to view all test PDF files on the right side by opening
In order to bundle all src/
files into two productions scripts and build the generic
viewer, issue:
$ node make 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
. If you want to support more browsers than Firefox you'll also need
to include compatibility.js
from build/generic/web/
. The PDF.js files are large and
should be minified for production.
You can play with the PDF.js API directly from your browser through the live demos below:
The repo contains a hello world example that you can run locally:
For an introduction to the PDF.js code, check out the presentation by our contributor Julian Viereck:
You can read more about PDF.js here:
- http://andreasgal.com/2011/06/15/pdf-js/
- http://blog.mozilla.com/cjones/2011/06/15/overview-of-pdf-js-guts/
Even more learning resources can be found at:
Check out our FAQs and get answers to common questions:
Talk to us on IRC:
- #pdfjs on irc.mozilla.org
Join our mailing list:
Subscribe either using lists.mozilla.org or Google Groups:
- https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-pdf-js
- https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.pdf-js/topics
Follow us on twitter: @pdfjs
Weekly Public Meetings