PDF Viewer (PDF.js 6)
View PDF files in VS Code. A maintained continuation of tomoki1207/vscode-pdfviewer (tomoki1207.pdf), with an up-to-date PDF.js and a locked-down webview.
Features
- Opens
.pdf files in a PDF.js 6 viewer: zoom, find, thumbnails, outline, attachments, layers, sticky notes, password-protected files, CJK text and JPEG 2000 images.
- Auto-reload when the file changes on disk, keeping the page, zoom, scroll position and sidebar. Made for LaTeX and Typst watch loops: rapid rebuilds end on the latest version, and half-written files are skipped.
- If the file is deleted and recreated shortly after (as many build tools do), the tab stays open and reloads.
- Links to
file.pdf#page=4, file.pdf#nameddest=intro or file.pdf#intro open at that page or destination.
- Ctrl/Cmd+P, Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P, Ctrl/Cmd+O and Ctrl/Cmd+S do what they do in the rest of VS Code (Quick Open, Command Palette and so on) instead of PDF.js's print, file picker and download.
- Works in untrusted workspaces and over Remote-SSH / WSL / containers (the extension runs locally).
Requires VS Code 1.123 or later, or the VSCodium release based on it.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
pdf-preview.default.cursor |
select |
Cursor tool on load: select or hand. |
pdf-preview.default.scale |
auto |
Zoom on load: auto, page-actual, page-fit, page-width, or a scale factor (1.25 = 125 %). |
pdf-preview.default.sidebar |
false |
Show the sidebar on load. |
pdf-preview.default.scrollMode |
vertical |
vertical, horizontal or wrapped. |
pdf-preview.default.spreadMode |
none |
none, odd or even. |
pdf-preview.closeOnDeleteDelay |
2000 |
Milliseconds to wait before closing the tab when its file is deleted. -1 keeps it open. |
Invalid values fall back to the next scope (workspace → user → default) and are reported once in the PDF Preview output channel.
Switching from tomoki1207.pdf
Uninstall the old extension first. Both use the same pdf-preview.* settings, so your settings carry over, but VS Code can only register them for one extension at a time.
The editor ID changed from pdf.preview to macromeer.pdfPreview. If your workbench.editorAssociations setting maps *.pdf to pdf.preview, change it to macromeer.pdfPreview.
Security
- PDF.js 6.4 is not affected by CVE-2024-4367 (arbitrary JavaScript through a crafted font), which affects the PDF.js 3.1 bundled in
tomoki1207.pdf 1.2.2.
- PDF scripting and annotation editing are disabled.
- The webview has a strict Content Security Policy (nonce-only scripts, no inline scripts or styles) and can only read the extension's own files. The PDF is sent to it as bytes, so it has no access to the PDF's folder.
- Messages between the webview and the extension are validated, and so are settings, which matters in untrusted workspaces.
Please report security problems privately through GitHub's security advisories.
Development
Needs Node.js 22 (see .nvmrc).
npm ci
npm run lint
npm test # compiles, downloads VS Code and runs the integration tests
npm run package # builds the VSIX
Press F5 in VS Code to start an Extension Development Host.
Updating PDF.js
scripts/update-pdfjs.sh <version> [sha256]
The script downloads the release, checks its SHA-256, replaces lib/build and lib/web and records the version in lib/PDFJS_VERSION. lib/main.js (the integration) and lib/pdf.css are not touched. A monthly workflow opens an issue with the exact command when a new PDF.js release is out. Run the tests afterwards; src/pdfPreview.ts fails loudly if viewer.html changed in a way it can't handle.
Releases are created automatically when a new version in package.json reaches main; the release notes come from CHANGELOG.md.
History and credits
Originally written by @tomoki1207 (up to 1.2.2, 2022). Version 2.0.0 builds on ideas and fixes from pull requests to the original repository:
See CHANGELOG.md for earlier contributors.
License
MIT, see LICENSE. The bundled PDF.js is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, see lib/LICENSE.
