Magic PDF

View, annotate and translate PDF files inside VS Code — dark mode, page-color inversion and AI translation.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f8e57d99-7afb-47c5-bb7d-24ef92ea33fd

Features

Native .pdf custom editor — opens PDFs in a regular editor tab, built on a pinned PDF.js prebuild.
Theme sync — the viewer follows your VS Code theme (light / dark / high-contrast) automatically, or pin it from the toolbar.
Page-color inversion — invert page colors independently of the theme for comfortable dark reading.
AI translation on selection — select text in the PDF and translate it inline using a language model via vscode.lm (GitHub Copilot).
Outline tree view — navigate the document's bookmarks from a dedicated Outline view in the Explorer.
Page & zoom status bar — current page and zoom in the status bar; click to jump to a page.
Annotations & forms — fill forms and add annotations (highlight, ink, free text, …), with save and hot-exit backup support.

Requirements

VS Code ^1.91.0 or newer.
AI translation requires an available vscode.lm chat model — install and sign in to GitHub Copilot. Everything else works without it; only translation is disabled.
Runs as a UI extension (extensionKind: ["ui"]): it needs local filesystem access and does not support virtual/remote workspaces.

Extension Settings

All settings live under the magicPdf.* namespace.

Setting	Default	Description
`magicPdf.theme`	`auto`	Page color theme. `dark` forces a dark background/foreground via PDF.js page colors.
`magicPdf.default.cursor`	`select`	The default cursor tool for preview.
`magicPdf.default.scale`	`auto`	Default zoom. Allowed: `auto`, `page-actual`, `page-fit`, `page-width`, or a numeric scale (`1.0` = 100%).
`magicPdf.default.sidebar`	`none`	Sidebar view shown on load.
`magicPdf.default.scrollMode`	`vertical`	The default scroll mode.
`magicPdf.default.spreadMode`	`none`	The default spread mode.
`magicPdf.default.textLayer`	`enable`	Selectable text layer over the PDF. `enablePermissions` honors the PDF's copy-permission flag.
`magicPdf.default.annotations`	`enableForms`	Render annotations (links, forms, …). `enableStorage` keeps in-session annotation edits.
`magicPdf.default.annotationEditor`	`none`	Annotation editor mode loaded by default.
`magicPdf.default.externalLinkTarget`	`blank`	How external links inside the PDF are opened.
`magicPdf.enableScripting`	`false`	Allow execution of JavaScript embedded in PDFs. Disabled by default for security.
`magicPdf.enablePermissions`	`true`	Respect the PDF's permission flags (copy / modify / annotate). Disable to bypass them on your own files.
`magicPdf.enableHWA`	`true`	Use hardware acceleration for canvas rendering.
`magicPdf.maxCanvasPixels`	`33554432`	Maximum canvas pixels per page. Lower it for very large PDFs that exceed GPU limits.
`magicPdf.toolbarDensity`	`normal`	Toolbar density. `compact` shrinks paddings for small windows; `touch` enlarges hit targets for touch screens.

Keyboard Shortcuts

See docs/KEYBOARD_SHORTCUTS.md for the full list (navigation, zoom, find, cursor tools, rotate, sidebar, save / print, annotations).

Known Issues

Same PDF in two split panels: if you edit in both panels, only the active panel's edits are written on save. Split-screen for reading is unaffected.
AI translation needs a Copilot language model installed and authorized; without one, translation is unavailable.

Release Notes

See CHANGELOG.md.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, scripts, conventions, and how to update the bundled PDF.js prebuild.

License

Licensed under Apache-2.0.

Magic PDF

Daniel Santanilla

Magic PDF

Features

Requirements

Extension Settings

Keyboard Shortcuts

Known Issues

Release Notes

Contributing

License