embed-pdf-viewer

Hi HN, creator of EmbedPDF here. I recently posted my open-source PDF viewer here, and one thing I really value is that it runs completely offline. I started wondering if we could push that further: could we do full ML layout analysis (detecting tables, headers, columns) directly in the browser? To my surprise, it actually works. The catch: It is far from production-ready. It crashes on most phones, and on older computers, it can be incredibly slow. The why: I believe the future of document processing is local. Many users work with sensitive documents (bank statements, legal contracts) and simply do not want to upload them to a cloud endpoint just to parse a table or analyze layout. This is a proof of concept for that future—where models get smaller, WASM/WebGPU gets faster, and we can keep data entirely on the client side. Demo: https://

Good point, you’re right that PDFium is Apache 2.0. I’ve updated the project to comply with the redistribution requirements in this PR: https://github.com/embedpdf/embed-pdf-viewer/pull/80/files. Thanks for flagging it!

I built EmbedPDF: an MIT-licensed, open-source PDF viewer that aims to match all of Adobe Acrobat’s paid features… for free. Already working: - Annotations (highlight, sticky notes, free text, ink) - True redaction (content actually removed) - Search, text selection, zoom, rotation - Runs fully in the browser, no server needed - Drop-in SDK for React, Vue, Preact, vanilla JS Why? Acrobat is heavy, closed, and pricey. I wanted something lightweight, hackable, and embeddable anywhere. Demo: https://app.embedpdf.com/ Website: https://www.embedpdf.com/ GitHub: https://github.com/embedpdf/embed-pdf-viewer Feedback, bug reports, and feature requests welcome!

Quick update: I just added a new option where you can set a custom wasmUrl when initializing the snippet. This way you can host your own .wasm build if you want to be 100% sure it hasn’t been modified. Here’s the commit: https://github.com/embedpdf/embed-pdf-viewer/commit/ff928377... Thanks again for raising the point — really good feedback!

Good question. You can fully reproduce the build. We have a Dockerfile here that handles the process: https://github.com/embedpdf/embed-pdf-viewer/blob/main/packa... Also, if you look in the package.json, there is a wasm script set up. Running pnpm run wasm will build the .wasm file inside Docker, so you get a clean, repeatable build.

Thanks so much, that’s a huge compliment, really appreciate it. Actually, most of what you’re describing is already there. We built a tiling plugin (https://github.com/embedpdf/embed-pdf-viewer/tree/main/packa...) that works kind of like Google Maps — instead of rendering the full document, it splits it into tiles and only renders what’s visible in the viewport. That’s how we keep it fast even for really large documents. Right now we support pinch-zoom on mobile, but mouse pan/zoom isn’t wired up yet. Would love to see you collaborate on the project if you’re interested. This kind of feedback is a big encouragement!

Is there any security risk to use as project with an embedded .wasm binary? Is there a build process for this that we can reproduce, or is there a way to bring our own if it's a generally available asset? Referring to this file: https://github.com/embedpdf/embed-pdf-viewer/blob/main/packa...

I just open-sourced EmbedPDF, a modern JavaScript PDF viewer that uses PDFium compiled to WebAssembly — not PDF.js. If you've ever tried to deeply customize PDF.js or needed high-fidelity rendering, you’ve probably hit its limits. And when looking for alternatives, most roads lead to Apryse (formerly PDFTron) or Nutrient (formerly PSPDFKit) — both powerful, but closed-source and expensive. There hasn’t really been a good middle ground — until now. GitHub: https://github.com/embedpdf/embed-pdf-viewer Demo & Docs: https://www.embedpdf.com