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Online PDF Viewer

Read, search and inspect a PDF without leaving the browser. Free, and runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.

About PDF Viewer

Opens a PDF, renders its pages, searches its text, and reports what the file actually is — without installing a reader or handing the document to a website. Rendering is done by pdf.js in this tab, and the fonts, character maps and image decoders it needs are served by this application, so an opened document makes no network requests at all.

Searching is the part that changes how the viewer is used. Type a word and the matches are listed with a line of context each, *and the pages holding them become the pages that are drawn* — so a hit on page 340 of a long document is shown rather than reported. The search is literal and case-insensitive: a reader looking for "figure 3" means those characters, not a pattern they now have to escape.

It also answers the question that decides what to do next with a file: is there any text in here at all? A scan is pictures of words — nothing in it can be searched, copied or read aloud — and a document that reports no text layer needs OCR before any other tool will get anything out of it.

Alongside that: the document's own bookmarks with the page each one goes to, the files embedded inside it, how many form fields it has, and whether it is encrypted and what it restricts. That is often the whole reason for opening a file — to see why it will not print, or what it is carrying.

Where it helps

  • Full-text search across the document, with the matching pages rendered rather than merely named.
  • Says plainly whether the file has a text layer, which decides what every other tool can do with it.
  • Lists the document's bookmarks with the page each one points at.
  • Reports embedded files and form fields — both of which most readers hide.
  • Renders a named page range, so a long document does not have to be drawn from the front.
  • Reads password-protected files when you supply the password.
  • The document is rendered in this tab; nothing about it is uploaded.

Limits

  • It renders and reports; it does not edit, annotate or re-save the document.
  • Search reads the first 600 pages and stops, and lists at most 300 matches.
  • A scan has no text, so search finds nothing in one — correctly, and that is what the text-layer row is for.
  • Matches are listed rather than highlighted on the page itself.
  • Every page shown is drawn to an image first, so a graphics-heavy document takes longer than a native reader would.
  • Interactive features — fillable forms, embedded video, JavaScript — are reported but not run.

Frequently asked questions

Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?

No. The file is read and drawn by this browser, and the rendering data it needs comes from this application rather than a content network.

Why did the search find nothing?

Either the term is not there, or there is no text to search. The text-layer row answers which: a scan holds pictures of words, and no amount of searching will find anything in one until it has been through OCR.

Why are only some pages shown?

Each page is rendered to an image before anything appears, so a limit keeps a 400-page document from locking up the tab. Name a page range to jump straight to a section, or search — the pages that matched are the ones drawn.

Can it open a file whose password I do not have?

No. Without the password the content is encrypted, and this tool decrypts rather than guesses.

Why does the text look slightly different from my usual reader?

Fonts. A PDF that did not embed the face it used is drawn with a substitute, and which substitute depends on the reader. The layout is the document's; the exact letterforms may not be.

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