The 18 Best Free Open Source Pdf Readers Of 2026

The 18 Best Free Open Source PDF Readers of 2026 - Adam Douglas Portable document format or better know as PDF is a well established file format developed in 1992 by Adobe based upon the Postscript language. The format has all the necessary data to have a fixed layout that is independent of an application, hardware or operating system. A PDF document ensures that it is rendered and printed as originally intended. Therefore, it is no surprise that PDFs have dominated the market thus far.

However, what is challenging is finding a document reader application that is actually available under a free open source license to grant the user the freedom to run, copy, modify, and redistribute. I realize to some this type of post can be considered cliché, but I wrote this post out of frustration of not easily finding an overview of free and open source software solutions that is concise yet informative. For some using the built-in PDF reader of a web browser is enough and that is fine.

Those looking for more can start exploring the available solutions our great open source community offers below for Android, GNU/Linux, macOS and Windows. Open Source PDF Readers - Atril A simple multipage document viewer that can display and print the following file formats, Postscript (PS), Encapsulated Postscript (EPS), DJVU, DVI, XPS and Portable Document Format (PDF). Features including searching, copying text to clipboard, hypertext link navigation, and table of contents. Atril is a part of the MATE desktop environment and was forked from Evince.

Atril provides the power of Evince with the main difference of the look a feel of what GNOME 2 provides. If you wish to install this application then use your operating system package manager. Available For: Linux - Bookworm A powerful document reader supporting of more than 15 document formats within a simple and highly accessible interface with such features as search, highlighting, text-to-speech, converter using optical character recognition (OCR) and compatible to work with screen readers such as NVDA and JAWS.

On top of that the application supports 7 languages, and portable use. Unfortunately I was not able to get Bookworm to run using Wine in order to test this application. Available For: Windows - Evince Document Viewer GNOMEâs desktop document viewer integrates well with full theme support along with the ability to search, annotate, rotate, night mode, print, share, and zoom.

The versatile viewing modes of slideshow, continuous, dual, right to left makes it a joy to work with along with a wide variety of file format support, PDF, PS, EPS, XPS, DjVu, TIFF, DVI (with SyncTeX), and Comic Books archives (CBR, CBT, CBZ, CB7). Presently this is my default PDF reader and document viewer on my primary system and home theatre PC (HTPC), and has worked well for many years in most use cases with exception to supporting the e-book formats (epub, mobi).

Available For: Linux - KOReader A minimalistic look with a powerful customizable feature set as an e-book and document viewer for E Ink devices and desktop Linux. The features of this application are tremendous, so Iâll do my best to get a good overview. Reading mode allows for highlighting text, bookmarks, annotations, and screenshots. Reading navigation is a breeze with quick jump between pages, chapters, bookmarks, book map, page browser and bookmark browser. All aspects of text are adjustable to your liking.

Navigating through your collection is achieved by using a file browser to copy, move rename, create, delete files and directories along with favourites for quick access and history for last accessed books. Reading statistics includes progress, time range and calendar views. Search, lookup and translation is wonderful to have and even allows for regular expressions. Transferring files also has quite the possibilities, with Dropbox/FTP/Webdav, SSH server, Calibre plugin over Wi-Fi using news downloader and Wallabag.

On top of all this you can easily export or synchronize notes and highlights to your device as text, markdown, HTML, JSON or Kindle clippings format. File format support includes EPUB, PDF, DjVu, XPS, CBT, CBZ, FB2, PDB, TXT, HTML, RTF, CHM, DOC, MOBI and ZIP files. This is one application that has loads of potential to fit the users needs. Iâve played with this application before, and I have to admit I donât exactly appreciate the interface look and feel.

However, after digging deeper for this post Iâm now wanting to use it more than ever. Itâs shocking how amazing and powerful this reader application is. Available For: Android, Cervantes, Desktop Linux, Kindle, Kobo, Pocketbook, reMarkable - Lector This is indeed a simple PDF reader that is built using Electron and PDF.js with the use of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. Simple doesnât mean it has the lack basic features such as print, search with the options to highlight all, match case and whole words.

Page navigation allows for next page, previous page, and jump to page number. The viewing can be adjusted to the desired zoom level. More features are hidden within the toggle sidebar and tools menu. The sidebar provides the capabilities to view page thumbnails, document outline and attachments. Tools have selections of jumping to first or last page, page rotation (clockwise, counterclockwise), text selection, hand tool, scrolling modes (vertical, horizontal, wrapped) and page spreads (none, odd, even).

Overall this reader seems like it does the job quite nicely and seems to run fairly well on Linux under Wine. Iâm happy to see an open source option available for Windows users. Available For: Windows - Librera Reader Librera Reader (a.k.a. Lirbi Reader, PDF Reader) is a highly customizable and feature-rich application for reading books in PDF, EPUB, MOBI, DjVu, FB2, TXT, RTF, AZW, AZW3, HTML, CBZ, CBR formats on Android devices. With its intuitive, yet powerful, interface, Librera makes e-book reading a veritable pleasure.

It even features a unique auto-scrolling, hands-free musicianâs mode, bookmarks, annotations, EPUB3 tables of contents, RTL languages, open zip archives, and endless more. The project gains its support by purchases of the optional PRO edition. I should note that the free edition has Google AdMob and OpenTelemetry which is not ideal for those being privacy conscious. Available For: Android - MJ PDF A fast, simple, and very lightweight PDF viewer with control of your privacy.

The interface is minimalistic with a bar at the top that displays the current page number out of total pages and document title. Controls are beside the document title with the option to toggle on full screen and then additional controls under the main menu. The interface theme can be in either light or dark mode.

The full screen mode features are accessible by a single touch of the screen that provides the ability to rotate the screen, adjust brightness, auto scroll with adjustable speed, lock horizontal swipe, lock zoom and take a screenshot. Additionally, you can do fast and powerful searches, text mode, remembers the last page that was opened in each document, full screen table of contents, full screen list all links found in current PDF, open online PDFs through links, sharing and print.

MJ PDF even allows having multiple instances of the app open at the same time. Available For: Android - muPDF A complete and powerful PDF solution for all your needs to extract, render, view, redact, create, annotate, parse, split, convert, merge, sign and optimize. A wide range of file formats are provided such as PDF, XPS, EPUB, MOBI, FB2, CBZ, SVG, TXT and image. I love the fact that the application allows control using the keyboard or mouse. Though some features are only accessible via the keyboard.

Refer to the man pages for complete details. As one can see in the screenshot below, the interface is very simple. To access all the capabilities an optional tool must be installed called muPDF Tools. This application takes you beyond a viewer to access features like draw, clean, extract, info, create, pages, poster, show, run, convert and merge.

If you are looking for lean and fast solution that supports keyboard control this would be it no matter if you are requiring a viewer or wishing to explore the vast capabilities in application development. Available For: Android, Linux, Windows - Okular A feature packed reader for PDF documents, comics (CBR, CBZ), epub, DjVU, images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, Tiff, WebP), Markdown and more with multi-platform support.

The advanced user interface provides the ability to annotate PDFs, select mode to copy text, magnifier mode to read small text, thumbnail panel, table of contents panel and digital signature support to detect modifications since being signed. Even though Okular is the default reader for the KDE Plasma desktop environment this application can be used with just about any desktop environment available on Linux and Windows.

Available For: Linux, Windows - qpdfview A tabbed document viewer powered by a Qt interface to open PDF, Postscript (PS), Encapsulated Postscript (EPS), DjVu, images and compressed archive files. Having the ability to have tabs allows for multiple documents to be open at the same time using only one instance of the application.

Feature Highlights - Print support via CUPS - Outline, properties and thumbnail panes - Scale, rotate and fit - Full screen and presentation views - Continuous and multiple-page layouts - Search for text - Configurable toolbars - Configurable keyboard shortcuts - Persistent per-file settings - SyncTeX support - Rudimentary annotation support - Rudimentary form support Available For: Linux - Sav PDF Viewer Pro The simplest, modern and compact PDF viewer that doesnât require permissions to use.

The interface is quite basic with an auto hide top bar that provides the ability to close the PDF, manage bookmarks, view/change current page out of total pages, and a main menu. The main menu provides quick touch access to toggle night mode, full screen mode, share, file chooser, bookmarks, help, zoom, continuous or book layout and dark mode. The file chooser utilizes the systemâs default file manager.

Upon opening the application for the first time will step the user through a quick welcome wizard that explains the app behaviour and where features are located. The application can be installed via Google Play Store, GitHub releases, Huawei AppGallery, and Amazon AppStore. Iâm honestly impressed by how simple and safe this application is from a privacy standpoint. It is always wonderful to see apps that require no additional permissions to use.

Available For: Android - Simple Android PDF Viewer A privacy and security focused viewer for the advanced power user that is based upon pdf.js. No app permissions are required to use. PDFs are fed into a sandboxed WebView without permission to access content or files. Content-Security-Policy is used to enforce that the JavaScript and styling properties within the WebView are entirely static content from the APK assets. A tiny subset of the attack surface is exposed with a hardened Chromium rendering stack.

Dynamic code evaluation is disabled in the PDF rendering code that is memory safe. Chromium is sandboxed with no access to the network, files or other content to aid in mitigation from an attacker. The application is made available in the GrapheneOS App Store, Google Play Store and GitHub releases. When the app is opened a screen is presented with the name of âPDF Viewerâ at the top left and a paper icon to the top right.

Touching the paper icon opens the file chooser using the systemâs default file manager. Once a PDF is opened the top bar changes to display the document title, previous and next page arrows and a main menu. The main menu features open document, first page, last page, jump to page, rotate clockwise, rotate counterclockwise, share, save as and properties. The app is quite simple, but it does get the job done in the safest way possible.

Available For: Android - Sioyek A PDF viewer with a focus on technical books and research papers that is primarily driven by keyboard navigation. Visually the interface is extremely basic with only a status bar being visible which provides the remaining screen real estate for viewing a PDF. Majority of keys used for keyboard shortcuts or bindings are commonly used making the application an easy transition. Though discovering the commands and shortcuts is a breeze when using the searchable command palette by pressing Shift +:.

Opening documents is done by pressing the key o or Shift + o for previously opened documents. Locating what you are looking for is quick and easy due to being able to search through currently opened document, previously opened document files, table of contents, bookmarks and highlights. If table of contents is not available for a document Sioyek when possible will generate one for you. Identify important text points using highlights with multiple colours.

Bookmarks can be created with a descriptive text to help remember sections you wish to readily refer back to. In addition to this, Marks can also be created at the current location using a symbol. For example to set a mark press the key m and then press the desired symbol in this case press a. Now you can jump back to this mark at any time pressing ` (tilde) + a.

Another way to swiftly jump around is with Smart Jump by middle mouse clicking on figures or cited references to jump to that point of the document. As well middle mouse clicking on names will search for this in Google Scholar or Shift + middle click searches Library Genesis. Portals are quite a unique feature that allows the reader to create reference points to a certain area of a document.

Doing so allows for an additional window to be opened, so one can reference another part of the document without having to jump back and forth. Sioyek is quite an extensible and powerful application to use, and I can see why some enjoy using it so much. However, I would say this is an application for a more advanced user since it takes more effort to understand and recall the necessary shortcuts and commands to achieve a given task.

Available For: Linux, macOS, Windows - Skim The highly customizable application is designed to help you view PDF files and take notes. Since Iâm unable to test this application here are few highlighted features.

Highlighting important text, including one-swipe highlight modes - Making âsnapshotsâ for easy reference - Navigation using table of contents or thumbnails, with visual history - View all your notes and highlights - Convenient reading in full screen - Giving powerful presentations, with built-in transitions - Handy preview of internal links - Focus using a reading bar - Magnification tool - Smart cropping tools - Extensive AppleScript support - Bookmark support - Saving passwords in Keychain - Export notes as text - Automatic download of remote PDFs - Support for Apple Remote Control - Interaction with LaTeX, SyncTeX, and PDFSync - Integration with BibDesk and other third party applications - Spotlight support Available For: macOS - Sumatra PDF This fast featured packed yet small PDF viewer has the ability to open PDF, eBook (epub, mobi), comic book (cbz/cbr), DjVu, XPS, CHM and images.

Quickly access the toolbar to browse files, print, next/previous page, layout in continuous or single page, rotate left/right, zoom in/out and find with optional case matching. The context menu is accessible via a right mouse click that allows one to copy a selection, translate/search a selection, add/remove favourites, toggle scroll bars/favourites pane and manage annotations. When hovering the mouse cursor over a link a tool tip appears displaying the destination it would go to if clicked on.

Without a doubt Sumatra PDF can get the job done for most use cases including some more advanced tasks. Available For: Linux via Wine, Windows - XpdfReader The familiar Qt interface provides an old school look and feel that makes for a productive reading application. Basics features including save, print, copy text, clickable links with destination preview, adjustable display modes (single page, continuous, side-by-side single, side-by-side continuous, horizontal continuous), full screen, rotate, zoom and search with case-sensitive, case-insensitive, smart case or whole words options.

Also, the app supports multiple tabs to allow for ease of jumping between documents and a pane to display outlines, layers and attachments. Application interaction can be achieved using the keyboard and mouse. In addition to the reader app there is a collection of included command line tools that preform various tasks as described below. On some systems an additional package maybe require to be installed called âpopplerâ in order to use these commands.

pdftotext: converts PDF to text - pdftops: converts PDF to Postscript - pdftoppm: converts PDF pages to netpbm (PPM/PGM/PBM) image files - pdftopng: converts PDF pages to PNG image files - pdftohtml: converts PDF to HTML - pdfinfo: extracts PDF metadata - pdfimages: extracts raw images from PDF files - pdffonts: lists fonts used in PDF files - pdfdetach: extracts attached files from PDF files What I found surprising about the app is that it has been in development since 1995 which makes it 29 years old as of writing this.

That is quite an accomplishment Derek Noonburg (the developer) has achieved. I feel the application can be a good fit for a user since the majority of the basic needs are met along with additional advanced command line tools. Available For: Linux, macOS, Windows Official Website - Download - Source Code - GNU GPL v2.0/v3.0 - Xreader The Xreader or document viewer is capable of displaying multiple and single page document formats supporting file formats such as PDF, Postscript, comic books, DjVu, DVI, epub, images, TIFF and XPS.

Upon opening the viewer application a menu bar is displayed at the top just above the toolbar and on the left is a pane to display page thumbnails, index, attachments, layers, annotations and bookmarks and finally on the right is the document area. The interface look and feel is accomplished with GTK and is a part of the cross desktop environment xapp project from Linux Mint. Basic features include save, print, file properties, clickable links with destination preview, find with optional case sensitive option, rotate, zoom and bookmarks.

Document view can be set to full screen, presentation, continuous, dual or right to left. The behaviour of the view is determined by using reader view or page view. The overall experience reminds me of Okular and XpdfReader and is yet another good choice depending on your needs. Available For: Linux - Zathura This document viewer takes the approach to be minimalistic with a space-saving interface while being highly customizable. Interaction with the application is focused on the use of a keyboard without the use of a mouse.

To stay lightweight you get to choose which supported file formats you want by installing the desired plugin, PDF Popplar, PDF MuPDF, DjVu, Postscript (PS) and comic books (CB). Using these plugins provides the option to choose what backend is used to render a document. Out of the box SyncTeX is supported to allow one to jump from the source document to the typeset material.

The bookmark feature is present to quickly jump back to a reference point, or you can also use Quickmarks that allows assigning a letter or number to a spot in the document. Then one can access the Quickmark by only pressing two keys. Zathura detects document revisions and automatically reloads without hesitation. In addition to all these features it is capable of exporting images and attachments, opening encrypted documents, view document meta information, printing and searching through the document or browse its index.

To top all this off almost everything is easily customizable with a configuration file. Admittedly this application is most likely for the advanced user and interacting with the interface can be initially challenging for some as it is not always apparent what commands to use to achieve a task. I suggest referring to the man pages to discover the mouse and key bindings (keyboard shortcuts) along with commands for those more adventurous.

Available For: Linux Support Adamsdesk Direct support from our audience allows for us to achieve our goal of sustainability. Cast Your Vote of Support.

Donate AffiliatesReferences - File viewer - Wikipedia - Free and open-source software - Wikipedia - Open source - Wikipedia - Open-source software - Wikipedia - PDF - Wikipedia - Postscript - Wikipedia - Post image created in Inkscape - Post image modifications, add background, add background overlay, add magnifying glass, resize magnifying glass, add text, add logo - Post image uses document magnifying glass by Clker-Free-Vector-Images - Post image uses Fira Sans font by Mozilla - Post image uses Gentium Basic font by SIL International

People Also Asked

• The%2018%20Best%20Free%20Open%20Source%20PDF%20Readers%20of%202026
• Best%20Free%20Alternatives%20to%20Adobe%20Acrobat%20Reader%20in%202026
• Best%20Open%20Source%20PDF%20Software%202026%20-%20SourceForge
• Open%20source%20alternatives%20to%20Adobe%20Acrobat%20for%20PDFs
• The%207%20Best%20PDF%20Readers%20For%202026%20%28Only%20FREE%20Options%29
• Best%20Free%20PDF%20Readers%20of%202026%20-%20Reviews%20%26%20Comparison%20-%20SourceForge
• I%20Tested%20the%20Best%20PDF%20Reader%20Apps%20in%202026%3B%20Here%27s%20What%27s...%20-%20Beebom