Obsidian Stats logoObsidian Stats

Local PDF Annotator

by Tianchen Hao
5
4
3
2
1
New Plugin
Install Code

Description

This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff. Read PDFs, highlight passages, place page notes, and manage searchable margin annotations stored as local Markdown sidecars.

Reviews

No reviews yet.

Stats

stars
downloads
0
forks
0
days
NaN
days
NaN
days
0
total PRs
0
open PRs
0
closed PRs
0
merged PRs
0
total issues
0
open issues
0
closed issues
0
commits

Latest Version

Invalid date

Changelog

See all version on GitHub

README file from

Github

PDF Annotator

PDF Annotator is a desktop-only Obsidian plugin for reading PDFs, marking passages, and keeping searchable annotations next to the document.

It stores annotation data in a local Markdown sidecar beside each PDF. The PDF file itself is not modified, and the annotation source remains readable and portable.

Features

  • Read PDFs inside Obsidian with a bundled, pinned pdf.js worker.
  • Select text without creating anything by accident.
  • Use the contextual selection popup to create either:
    • a highlight only, or
    • an annotation with a highlight and a margin note card.
  • Keep text crisp: highlight color is painted behind selectable PDF text.
  • View annotation cards in left and right margins at the level of their source passage.
  • Search highlights, notes, and page tags in the horizontal Annotations row.
  • Add page-level tags for notes that are not tied to a text selection.
  • Move margin cards between left and right margins.
  • Import legacy obsidian-annotator highlights for the current PDF.

Opening PDFs

PDF Annotator is always available from:

  • File explorer: right-click a .pdf file and choose Annotate.
  • Command palette: run Open current PDF in annotator.

You can also make it the default PDF viewer from plugin settings. This redirects ordinary .pdf clicks into PDF Annotator. The setting is opt-in for fresh installs.

Basic Use

  1. Open a PDF in PDF Annotator.
  2. Drag-select text. Selection alone creates nothing.
  3. Move to the slim handle at the end of the selection until the action popup opens.
  4. Choose Highlight to save only a text mark.
  5. Choose Annotate to save a text mark plus a margin note card.
  6. Use Tag in the top-right controls to place a page note at a specific location on the PDF.
  7. Use Annotations to open the searchable horizontal annotation row.

Data Format

Each PDF gets a companion file named:

<pdf-name>.annotations.md

The sidecar lives in the same folder as the PDF. It contains a readable Markdown summary and a fenced JSON block that is used as the machine-readable source of truth.

Highlight geometry is stored in PDF user-space coordinates, so highlights and tags remain anchored across zoom changes.

Privacy

PDF Annotator does not use telemetry and does not send PDF contents or annotation contents to any remote service. Data is stored locally in your vault.

Legacy Import

If you previously used obsidian-annotator, open the target PDF in this plugin and run:

Import legacy obsidian-annotator highlights for this PDF

The importer searches notes with annotation-target: frontmatter, re-anchors quoted text in the PDF, and creates PDF Annotator highlights. Legacy notes are left untouched.

Development

npm install
npm run typecheck
npm run build

npm run build type-checks the plugin, bundles main.js, and copies main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into the configured local vault plugin directory used by this checkout.

Release Files

Obsidian installs community plugin releases from GitHub release assets. A release must include:

  • main.js
  • manifest.json
  • styles.css

The release tag must match the version field in manifest.json.

Sponsors