PDF Reader
A private PDF viewer: search, bookmarks, read aloud and night mode — nothing is uploaded.
Use the arrow keys, Page Up and Page Down to scroll. Left and Right arrows go to the previous or next page when the page fits the width; plus and minus zoom; Ctrl+F searches.
About the PDF Reader
Open one PDF or a whole stack of them and read them right here: pages scroll continuously and are drawn by pdf.js, the PDF engine of Firefox, with real, selectable text you can copy. The sidebar shows page thumbnails, the PDF’s own outline (bookmarks), your search results and the document’s details.
Search finds words and phrases in one PDF or in every PDF you have open, ignoring accents and line breaks if you like, and lists each match with the text around it. Read aloud speaks the pages with your device’s voices and highlights the sentence being read. Switch the pages to Night or Sepia for comfortable reading, print all or some pages, or go full screen. Your files are opened on this device and are never uploaded.
How to use it
- Press Choose PDFs (or drop files on the box) and pick one or more PDFs. Password-protected files ask for their password, which is used only on this device.
- Scroll through the pages, or type a page number in the box and press Enter. Automatic, Fit width, Whole page and the − / + buttons set the zoom.
- Open the sidebar for page thumbnails, the outline (bookmarks) and the document details. Links inside the PDF work too.
- Press Search (or Ctrl/⌘ + F), type a word or phrase and press Enter to step through the matches. Tick All open PDFs to search every PDF you have opened; the Results tab lists each match with its page.
- Press Read aloud to hear the pages from where you are, with Pause, sentence skip, voice and speed controls. Choose Night or Sepia for the page colours, or Print for all pages, the current page or a range.
Examples
Open 12 invoices, tick “All open PDFs”, search: GSTIN
Every match in every invoice, grouped by file with its page number and the text around it — click one to jump there. Export the list as a CSV file.
Search: resume
Finds “resume”, “Resume” and “résumé”, also when the word is split by a hyphen at the end of a line. Tick Match case or Match accents to be strict.
Go to page 5, press Read aloud
The voice reads page 5 sentence by sentence, highlights the sentence it is reading and carries on to page 6, 7 …
Common uses
- Reading e-books, reports and papers distraction-free in full screen, with night colours in the evening.
- Finding which of many PDFs (invoices, statements, contracts) mentions a name, number or clause.
- Listening to a long document while resting your eyes, or proof-listening your own writing.
- Opening a PDF on a computer where you can’t or don’t want to install a PDF app.
- Checking a PDF’s outline, page labels, author and creation date before sending it on.
How search works
Search reads the text layer of the PDF — the same text you can select and copy. By default it ignores upper and lower case and accents (so cafe finds café), treats line breaks as spaces, joins words hyphenated at the end of a line, and matches curly quotes and dashes with the ones on your keyboard. Ligatures such as “fi” are matched as the letters they stand for.
- Match case — Paris does not find paris.
- Whole words — cat does not find category.
- Match accents — cafe does not find café.
- All open PDFs — searches every open file and lists the matches by file and page.
The PDF on screen is searched from the page you are on, so the first match shown is the next one after where you are. A search stops at 5,000 matches; the Results tab lists the first 500 and the CSV export has all of them.
Read aloud and your privacy
Read aloud uses the speech voices built into your browser and operating system (the Web Speech API). The reader picks an on-device voice for the language the PDF declares or the script its text is written in, so the text stays on your device. Some browsers also offer online voices (for example Google’s voices in Chrome or Microsoft’s “Online (Natural)” voices in Edge); these are listed separately and send the text being read to that company’s speech service, so the reader never chooses one for you. Pages without text (scans) are skipped with a note.
Keyboard shortcuts
- Arrow keys, Page Up / Page Down, Home / End — scroll the pages (click the pages first).
- ← / → — previous / next page when the page fits the width.
- + / − — zoom in / out.
- Ctrl/⌘ + F — search; Enter / Shift + Enter — next / previous match; Esc — close the search.
- Ctrl/⌘ + P — opens the reader’s print options.
Limitations
- Reading only: to fill forms use PDF Form Filler, to add notes or highlights use PDF Annotator.
- Scanned PDFs are pictures of pages, so there is no text to search, copy or read aloud until you make them searchable with OCR PDF.
- Night mode inverts the page colours, so photos look like negatives. Sepia keeps photos as they are.
- Printing sends pictures of the pages (150 or 300 dpi), not the original vector text; very long print jobs are better printed from a desktop PDF app.
- Scripts, sound, video, 3D content and XFA forms inside PDFs are not run or shown.
- Up to 20 PDFs can be open at once — up to 300 MB each and 1 GB together; how large a file works depends on your device’s memory.
Privacy
Your PDFs are opened and drawn in your browser and are never uploaded. Passwords are used only on this device. If “Remember where I stopped” is on, this browser stores the last page you read of each PDF together with a fingerprint of the file (a hash of its name, size and first bytes — never the name or the content itself) in its local storage. Reading aloud with an online voice sends the text being read to that voice’s speech service; on-device voices keep it on your device.
Frequently asked questions
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The PDF is read from your device and drawn by pdf.js in your browser. Nothing about its content is sent to MySmartCoPilot or anyone else — except the text being spoken if you choose an online voice for Read aloud.
Can I search several PDFs at once?
Yes. Open all of them (choose several files at once, or press the + button to add more), open Search and tick All open PDFs. Matches are grouped by file in the Results tab; click one to open that PDF at the match, or export the list as CSV.
Why does search find nothing in my scanned PDF?
A scanned PDF holds pictures of the pages, not text. Make it searchable with OCR PDF — it adds an invisible text layer — then open the new file here.
Which voices can read aloud?
The ones your browser and operating system provide: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and ChromeOS include voices for many languages, and you can add more in the system’s speech or accessibility settings. On-device voices are listed first; online voices are marked and send the text to their speech service.
Does Night or Sepia mode change my file?
No. Page colours only change how the pages look here. The PDF itself is not modified, and printing always uses the original colours.
How do I print only some pages?
Press Print, choose This page or Choose and type pages such as 1-3, 7, 10-, pick the quality and press Print. Each page prints on a sheet of its own size. Save as PDF in the print dialog saves pictures of those pages (no selectable text); to keep some pages as a real PDF with its text and links, use PDF Page Extractor.
Does it remember where I stopped reading?
Yes, on this device: open the same file again and it continues at the last page you read, with a button to go back to page 1. Untick Remember where I stopped in the Details tab to switch this off and forget the saved pages.