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PDF Commenter

by kirangathani
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Score: 35/100
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Description

This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff. A PDF viewer with an annotation system backed by markdown notes. Select text, create comments with backlinks, and keep everything inside your vault.

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Latest Version

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Changelog

See all version on GitHub

README file from

Github

PDF Commenter

An Obsidian plugin for reading and annotating PDFs. Select text, leave comments, and link them to other notes in your vault with backlinks.

Comments are stored as individual markdown notes with frontmatter, not embedded in the PDF. Everything stays in your vault as plain files.

Desktop only.

Features

  • PDF viewer with zoom controls and pinch-to-zoom
  • Select text and create comments anchored to that position
  • Comments pane sits alongside the PDF with scroll sync
  • Each comment is a markdown note — edit it, link to it, find it in search
  • backlinks autocomplete in the comment editor
  • Highlighted text regions rendered on the PDF pages
  • Right-click context menu: copy text, create comment, copy to active note

How it works

When you annotate a PDF, the plugin creates:

  • A sidecar file (<pdf>.mg-comments.json) storing annotation positions and metadata
  • A folder of markdown notes (one per comment) with frontmatter linking back to the PDF

Install

Via BRAT (recommended)

  1. Install the BRAT plugin from Obsidian's community plugin browser (Settings > Community plugins > Browse, search "BRAT").
  2. Open BRAT settings (Settings > BRAT).
  3. Click Add Beta plugin.
  4. Paste the repo URL: kirangathani/pdf-commenter
  5. Click Add Plugin. BRAT will download the latest release and keep it updated.
  6. Enable PDF Commenter in Settings > Community plugins.

Manual install

Download main.js, pdf.worker.js, styles.css, and manifest.json from the latest release and place them in your vault at .obsidian/plugins/pdf-commenter/.

Keyboard shortcuts

General

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+Alt+M Create comment from selected text
Alt+Backspace Delete selected comment
Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z Undo last comment deletion
Alt+D Cycle to next comment
Alt+Shift+D Cycle to previous comment
Ctrl+F / Cmd+F Open search bar
Escape Close search bar / context menu
Ctrl+Scroll / Cmd+Scroll Pinch-to-zoom

Comment editor

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter Save comment
[[ Open wikilink autocomplete
Arrow Up / Arrow Down Navigate autocomplete suggestions
Enter Accept selected suggestion
Escape Dismiss autocomplete

Search bar

Shortcut Action
Enter Next search result
Shift+Enter Previous search result
Escape Close search bar

Build from source

npm install
npm run dev     # watch mode
npm run build   # production build

Requires Node 16+.

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