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 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.

Getting Started

Online demo

• http://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/web/viewer.html

Browser Extensions

Firefox

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.

Chrome and Opera

The Chromium extension is still somewhat experimental but it can be installed two ways:

• Unofficial Version - This extension is maintained by a PDF.js contributor.
• Build Your Own - Get the code as explained below and issue node make chromium. Then open Chrome, go to Tools > Extension and load the (unpackaged) extension from the directory build/chromium.

The version of the extension for the Opera browser can be found at the Opera add-ons catalog.

Getting the Code

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

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

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

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

Building PDF.js

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.

Learning

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

• Hello world
• Simple reader with prev/next page controls

The repo contains a hello world example that you can run locally:

• examples/helloworld/

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

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

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:

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

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:

• #pdfjs on irc.mozilla.org

Join our mailing list:

• [email protected]

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

• http://twitter.com/#!/pdfjs

Weekly Public Meetings

• https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/wiki/Weekly-Public-Meetings