PDF.js
General-purpose, web standards-based platform for parsing and rendering PDFs in the browser.
- Actively maintained
- Well documented
- Permissive license
Overview
PDF.js is a PDF viewer and parsing/rendering library built entirely with web technologies (HTML5/JavaScript) rather than a native plugin. It's community-driven and supported by Mozilla, and its stated goal is to be a general-purpose, web-standards-based platform for parsing and rendering PDF files in the browser.
It's built directly into Firefox (from version 19 onward) as the default PDF viewer, and an official-style extension is available for Chrome; you can also embed the viewer or library in your own web app, or build your own browser extension from the source.
PDF.js is a fit for web developers who need to render or inspect PDF documents inside a web page or browser extension without relying on a native/plugin-based PDF viewer or a proprietary rendering engine.
Why it's in this catalog
Catalog rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
The standard browser-based PDF rendering library; underlies Firefox's built-in PDF viewer.
- Foundational
- Vendor-backed
- Categories
- Media
- Keywords
- pdfpdf-viewerdocumentrendering
- Languages
- JavaScript
- License
- Apache-2.0
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