SoloPDF
PDF reader where highlights become notes
A free, ad-free, local-first PDF reader. The core idea: highlights become notes. Swipe a highlight in a PDF and it lands in a plain Markdown file — editable in SoloMD, full-text searchable, git-versionable, with a deep link that jumps straight back to the exact spot. Plus fillable forms, encrypted PDFs, smart dark-mode inversion, CJK-solid search, and a bundled CLI + MCP server. A 157MB thousand-page scan cold-starts in about a second.
Highlights → Markdown annotation files (editable in SoloMD, deep links jump back)
Triple anchoring: highlights relocate after PDF updates, degrade gracefully, never lose notes
Fillable AcroForm forms; export a filled copy, original untouched
Streaming loads: 157MB / 1,048 pages cold-starts in ~1s
CJK search with NFKC normalization (yes, even Kangxi-radical codepoints)
CLI + MCP bundled; no ads, no telemetry, ever
Built using the doaipm method with Claude Code. See the methodology →