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 the 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. This version is also reported to work when installed as extension in Seamonkey 2.39.
- 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 toTools > Extensionand 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. 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
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:
$ 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. 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.
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.
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