PDFApps

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PDF editor and manager for Windows, macOS and Linux, fast, offline and subscription-free.

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# PDFApps

> PDF editor and manager for Windows, macOS and Linux, fast, offline and subscription-free.

[![Microsoft Store](https://img.shields.io/badge/Microsoft%20Store-Install-0078D4?logo=microsoftstore&logoColor=white)](https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9P70QGR8BSMZ)

[![Release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/nelsonduarte/PDFApps?color=10b981&logo=github)](https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/releases/latest)
[![Downloads](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/total?color=2563eb&logo=github)](https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/releases)
[![Build](https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/build.yml?logo=github)](https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/actions)
[![Stars](https://img.shields.io/github/stars/nelsonduarte/PDFApps?style=flat&color=f59e0b&logo=github)](https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/stargazers)
[![Python](https://img.shields.io/badge/Python-3.14-blue?logo=python&logoColor=white)](https://www.python.org/)
[![PySide6](https://img.shields.io/badge/PySide6-6.10-green?logo=qt&logoColor=white)](https://doc.qt.io/qtforpython/)
[![Platform](https://img.shields.io/badge/platform-Windows%20%7C%20macOS%20%7C%20Linux-lightgrey)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/main/)
[![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-orange)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/main/LICENSE)
[![GitHub Sponsors](https://img.shields.io/badge/sponsor-♥-ea4aaa?logo=github)](https://github.com/sponsors/nelsonduarte)

---

## Why PDFApps?

Most PDF tools are either paid, browser-based, or require uploading your files to the cloud. **PDFApps** is different:

- **100% offline** — your files never leave your computer
- **No subscriptions** — free and open source, forever
- **All-in-one** — 15 tools: split, merge, compress, encrypt, OCR, convert, edit, page numbers, N-up and more
- **Cross-platform** — works on Windows, macOS and Linux
- **Fast** — lazy rendering opens large PDFs instantly
- **Multi-language** — 8 interface languages (EN, PT, ES, FR, DE, ZH, IT, NL)

---

## Features

| Tool              | Description                                                                                                                                          |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Split**         | Split the PDF into multiple files by user-defined page ranges                                                                                        |
| **Merge**         | Combine multiple PDFs (drag and drop) into a single output, with free ordering                                                                       |
| **Rotate**        | Rotate individual pages or the entire document at any angle                                                                                          |
| **Extract pages** | Export a subset of pages to a new PDF                                                                                                                |
| **Reorder**       | Drag-and-drop interface to reorder or remove pages with preview                                                                                      |
| **Compress**      | Reduce file size with three compression levels (extreme / recommended / low)                                                                         |
| **Encrypt**       | Protect the PDF with a password or remove existing protection                                                                                        |
| **Watermark**     | Overlay a watermark/stamp PDF on pages with opacity and position control                                                                             |
| **OCR**           | Recognise text in scanned PDFs — 5 language packs bundled (PT, EN, ES, FR, DE), works with any of Tesseract's 100+ languages if installed separately |
| **Convert**       | Export PDF to DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, HTML, EPUB, TXT, PNG or JPG (with DPI control)                                                                       |
| **Page numbers**  | Add page numbering (header/footer) with format, position and font control                                                                            |
| **N-Up**          | Arrange multiple pages per sheet (2, 4, 6, 9, 16-up) with custom layout                                                                              |
| **Edit**          | Inline visual editor: redact, insert text, image, signature, highlight, notes, forms and edit existing text                                          |
| **Import**        | Convert DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, HTML, EPUB, TXT, Markdown or images (PNG/JPG/BMP) to PDF — batch support                                                   |
| **Info**          | Show metadata, page count, size and document properties                                                                                              |

### Integrated viewer

- **Print** — print any open PDF via system print dialog with high-resolution rendering
- **Bookmarks / TOC** — clickable side panel with the PDF outline (chapters, sections); jumps to any heading
- **Night reading mode** — invert PDF colors (white→dark, dark→light) for comfortable reading at night, independent from the app theme
- **Presentation mode (F5)** — fullscreen slideshow with keyboard navigation (arrows, Space, PgUp/PgDn, Home/End)
- **Fullscreen (F11)** — distraction-free viewing with hidden toolbars
- **Tabbed viewing** — open multiple PDFs in tabs, switch between them
- Continuous scroll through all pages (Adobe Acrobat style)
- **Lazy rendering** — opens instantly; pages rendered in background as they are viewed
- **PDF search (Ctrl+F)** — search bar with live highlights and navigation between matches
- Zoom with Ctrl+scroll or toolbar buttons
- **Page navigation** — jump to any page via input field or prev/next buttons
- Text selection and copy by dragging
- **Comment popups** — view and delete annotations with pencil icons and balloon popups
- Password-protected PDF support
- **Drag & drop** — drop a PDF anywhere in the window to open it

### Editor

- **Continuous scroll** — all pages visible at once, scroll through the entire document
- **Signature** — draw, type (cursive fonts), or import an image signature; save for reuse; drag to place on PDF
- **Undo/Redo** — Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y with full action history
- **Color picker** — choose any color for text, highlights, redactions and drawings
- Redact, insert text, images, highlights, notes, forms and edit existing text

### Other highlights

- **Pipeline mode** — apply multiple tools in sequence (e.g. rotate then compress) and save only at the end with Ctrl+S
- **Auto-update** — direct installs check for new versions on startup and download/install them in-app with a progress bar; Microsoft Store, Snap, Flatpak and distro packages skip the check entirely and are updated by the platform
- **Multi-language** — auto-detects system language (EN, PT, ES, FR, DE, ZH, IT, NL), with selector in toolbar; auto-restarts on change
- **Localized installer** — installer and uninstaller detect the OS language and display in the user's language
- **Recent files** — quick access to the last 10 opened PDFs via history icon
- **Help guide** — ? button opens the online user guide
- **Accessibility** — screen reader support (accessible names on all buttons), visible focus indicators, keyboard-navigable UI
- Modern dark/light theme with toggle sidebar
- Full drag and drop support across all file fields
- Cross-platform: Windows, macOS and Linux
- Installer with automatic OCR engine (Tesseract) and Ghostscript detection and installation

---

## Getting started

### Download

| Platform                   | How to get it                                                                                                                                                                                              |
| -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Windows** 10/11 (Store)  | [Get it on the Microsoft Store](https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9P70QGR8BSMZ) — auto-updates handled by Windows                                                                                          |
| **Windows** 10/11 (direct) | `winget install nelsonduarte.PDFApps`, or download `PDFAppsSetup.exe` from [Releases](https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/releases/latest)                                                             |
| **macOS** 10.14+           | Download `PDFApps-macOS.dmg` from [Releases](https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/releases/latest), mount, and drag PDFApps.app to Applications — Tesseract via `brew install tesseract tesseract-lang` |
| **Ubuntu / Debian / Snap** | `sudo snap install pdfapps`                                                                                                                                                                                |
| **Fedora**                 | `sudo dnf copr enable nelsonduarte2809/pdfapps && sudo dnf install pdfapps`                                                                                                                                |
| **Arch / Manjaro**         | `yay -S pdfapps` (source) or `yay -S pdfapps-bin` (binary)                                                                                                                                                 |
| **Any Linux**              | Download the latest `PDFApps-*-x86_64.AppImage` from [Releases](https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps/releases/latest), `chmod +x` and run                                                               |

### Run from source

```bash
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/nelsonduarte/PDFApps.git
cd PDFApps

# Create virtual environment
python -m venv venv

# Activate — Windows
venv\Scripts\activate
# Activate — macOS / Linux
source venv/bin/activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run
python pdfapps.py
```

> **Tesseract OCR** is required for text recognition:
>
> - **Windows**: the installer handles this automatically
> - **macOS**: `brew install tesseract tesseract-lang`
> - **Linux**: `sudo apt install tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-por tesseract-ocr-eng`

---

## Build

The build process generates three executables in the `dist/` folder:

```bash
# 1. Main application
python -m PyInstaller --clean pdfapps.spec

# 2. Uninstaller
python -m PyInstaller --clean uninstaller.spec

# 3. Installer (bundles the two above)
python -m PyInstaller --clean installer.spec
```

| File                        | Description                              |
| --------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| `dist/PDFApps.exe`          | Main application (~93 MB)                |
| `dist/PDFAppsUninstall.exe` | Standalone uninstaller (~13 MB)          |
| `dist/PDFAppsSetup.exe`     | **Installer for distribution** (~113 MB) |

> PyInstaller does not cross-compile — the binary must be built on the target platform.

---

## Tech stack

| Component        | Technology                                                                                                      | Version |
| ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------- |
| GUI              | [PySide6](https://doc.qt.io/qtforpython/) (Qt 6)                                                                | 6.10.2  |
| PDF rendering    | [PyMuPDF](https://pymupdf.readthedocs.io/) (fitz)                                                               | 1.27.2  |
| PDF manipulation | [pypdf](https://pypdf.readthedocs.io/)                                                                          | 6.8.0   |
| OCR              | [Tesseract](https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract) + [pytesseract](https://github.com/madmaze/pytesseract) | 0.3.13  |
| DOCX export      | [python-docx](https://python-docx.readthedocs.io/)                                                              | 1.2.0   |
| Image processing | [Pillow](https://python-pillow.org/)                                                                            | 12.1.1  |
| Icons            | [QtAwesome](https://github.com/spyder-ide/qtawesome)                                                            | 1.4.1   |
| Packaging        | [PyInstaller](https://pyinstaller.org/)                                                                         | 6.19.0  |

---

## Project structure

```
PDFApps/
├── pdfapps.py              # Application entry point
├── installer.py            # Installer (tkinter UI, 8 languages)
├── uninstaller.py          # Uninstaller (8 languages)
├── pdfapps.spec            # PyInstaller config — app
├── installer.spec          # PyInstaller config — installer
├── uninstaller.spec        # PyInstaller config — uninstaller
├── icon.ico                # Application icon (multi-size, square)
├── icon_512.png            # Source icon (512x512 PNG)
├── pdfapps.svg             # Logo SVG (used in sidebar/viewer)
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
├── docs/                   # Static site published at pdf-apps.com (Cloudflare Pages)
│   ├── index.html          # Landing page
│   ├── features.html       # Feature gallery
│   ├── download.html       # Per-platform install options
│   ├── docs.html           # User guide
│   ├── changelog.html      # Release notes
│   ├── privacy.html        # Privacy policy
│   ├── styles.css          # Shared theme (dark + light)
│   ├── icon.png            # App icon for website
│   └── favicon.ico         # Browser favicon
├── msix/                   # Microsoft Store packaging (manifest, assets, build.ps1)
├── flatpak/                # Flatpak / AppStream metainfo + .desktop file
├── snap/                   # Snap Store package definition
├── aur/                    # AUR PKGBUILDs (pdfapps source build + pdfapps-bin binary)
├── rpm/                    # Fedora Copr .spec file
├── winget/                 # Microsoft winget manifest
├── app/                    # Modular source code
│   ├── constants.py        # Colours and design constants
│   ├── styles.py           # Qt stylesheet (dark/light theme)
│   ├── utils.py            # Shared utilities
│   ├── widgets.py          # Reusable widgets (DropFileEdit, etc.)
│   ├── base.py             # Base class for tools (BasePage)
│   ├── i18n.py             # Internationalization module (8 languages)
│   ├── translations.json   # All translated UI strings
│   ├── updater.py          # Auto-updater (GitHub releases)
│   ├── window.py           # Main window (MainWindow)
│   ├── tools/              # PDF manipulation tools
│   │   ├── split.py
│   │   ├── merge.py
│   │   ├── rotate.py
│   │   ├── extract.py
│   │   ├── reorder.py
│   │   ├── compress.py
│   │   ├── encrypt.py
│   │   ├── watermark.py
│   │   ├── convert.py
│   │   ├── import_pdf.py
│   │   ├── info.py
│   │   └── ocr.py
│   ├── viewer/             # Integrated PDF viewer
│   │   ├── canvas.py       # Lazy page rendering in background threads (fitz)
│   │   ├── panel.py        # Viewer panel with controls
│   │   └── presentation.py # Fullscreen presentation mode (F5)
│   └── editor/             # Visual PDF editor
│       ├── canvas.py       # Edit canvas (PdfEditCanvas)
│       ├── tab.py          # Edit tab (TabEditar)
│       └── dialogs.py      # Auxiliary dialogs
└── dist/                   # Generated executables (after build)
```

---

## Keyboard shortcuts

| Shortcut           | Action                           |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------- |
| **Ctrl+O**         | Open PDF (multi-select)          |
| **Ctrl+S**         | Save / apply active tool         |
| **Ctrl+P**         | Print current PDF                |
| **Ctrl+W**         | Close current tab                |
| **Ctrl+F**         | Search text in PDF               |
| **Ctrl+Z**         | Undo (editor)                    |
| **Ctrl+Y**         | Redo (editor)                    |
| **Ctrl+Scroll**    | Zoom in/out                      |
| **Ctrl+1–9**       | Open tool 1–9                    |
| **Ctrl+Shift+1–6** | Open tool 10–15                  |
| **PgUp / PgDn**    | Previous / next page             |
| **F5**             | Start presentation mode          |
| **F11**            | Toggle fullscreen                |
| **Escape**         | Exit presentation / close search |

---

## Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for the full developer guide — architecture, modules, functions, and how to add new tools.

---

## Support the project

PDFApps is free, open source, and built by a solo developer. If you or your company find it useful, [sponsoring on GitHub](https://github.com/sponsors/nelsonduarte) or [funding on Polar](https://polar.sh/nelsonduarte) helps keep it maintained.

---

## License

This project is licensed under the [MIT License](LICENSE).

PDFApps

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