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PDF Viewer
Open a PDF in your browser without uploading it: scroll, zoom, select text and search inside the document. Free, private, works offline once loaded.
How to use PDF Viewer
- Drop a PDF.
- Scroll, zoom, select text or search inside it.
- Print or download when you are done.
How to open and read a PDF without uploading it
Most online PDF viewers upload the document to a server and render it there. PaperKit does the rendering in your browser with pdf.js, the same engine Firefox ships, so the file never leaves your device. Drop a PDF and it opens as a continuous scroll of pages with a selectable text layer on top, a page counter, zoom buttons and a search box. There is nothing to install, no account, and no file size limit other than your device memory. Password-protected PDFs ask for their password inside the viewer and are decrypted locally.
Reading, zooming and jumping to a page
Pages render as you scroll, so a 300-page report opens in a second and only the pages near the viewport are drawn. Fit matches the page width to the panel; the minus and plus buttons step through 50% to 300%. Type a page number in the counter to jump there, or use the arrows. The viewer uses the device pixel ratio, so text stays sharp on Retina and high-DPI screens.
Selecting and copying text
A transparent text layer sits over every rendered page, so you can select text with the mouse, copy it, and use the browser search as you would on a web page. The layer uses the fonts and positions stored in the PDF; scanned documents without a text layer show pictures of text and cannot be selected until they are OCR-processed, which this tool does not do.
- Select with the mouse, copy with Ctrl or Cmd + C
- Scanned PDFs: no selectable text unless an OCR layer exists
- Text in forms and annotations is drawn but not editable
Finding a word in the document
Type into Find in document and press Enter. PaperKit reads the text of every page, counts the matches, highlights them in yellow on the rendered pages, and jumps to the first page that contains the word. The up and down buttons move between pages with matches. The search is case-insensitive and matches inside words.
Printing and downloading
Print opens the PDF in a new tab with the browser's own viewer, which has the full print dialog with paper size, pages and scaling. Download saves the original file unchanged. The viewer never modifies the document; use the other PaperKit tools to rotate, crop, compress or protect it.
Password-protected and large files
If the PDF is encrypted, the viewer asks for the password and decrypts the pages in your browser; the password is not stored. To remove the password permanently, use Unlock PDF. Very large scans render page by page, so memory use stays flat; if a file still fails to open, it is usually damaged, and Compress PDF or the application that created it can often rewrite it.
Private by design
PaperKit has no server-side viewer. The pages are drawn on a canvas inside the tab, the text layer is generated locally, and closing the tab discards everything. That makes it suitable for contracts, medical records, payslips and other documents you would not want to upload just to read.
Next steps
- Extract all the text instead
- Remove a PDF password for good
- Make a large PDF smaller
- Rotate pages that open sideways
Related PDF tools
- PDF to Text — Extract the text of a PDF in the browser, line by line, and download it as a .txt file. Scans need OCR first.
- Extract Pages — Extract specific pages from a PDF into a new file: click the pages to keep, or type page numbers or ranges.
- Compress PDF — Shrink a PDF by re-encoding the photos and scans inside it at the quality you choose, or fit it under 100 KB, 500 KB or 1 MB, all in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
How do I open a PDF without uploading it?
Drop it on PaperKit PDF Viewer. The pages are rendered by pdf.js inside your browser tab; nothing is sent to a server, and closing the tab removes the file from memory.
Can I search inside the PDF?
Yes. Type a word in Find in document and press Enter: matches are counted, highlighted on the pages and you can jump between the pages that contain them. Scanned PDFs without a text layer cannot be searched.
Does the viewer open password-protected PDFs?
Yes. It asks for the password and decrypts the file locally. Use Unlock PDF if you want a copy without the password.
Is there a file size limit?
No fixed limit. Pages render on demand, so large documents use little memory. Your device memory is the only constraint.
Can I edit or annotate the PDF here?
Not in the viewer. It reads only. PaperKit has separate tools to rotate, crop, number, watermark, sign, compress and protect PDFs.