Linux native

PDF Reader

Continuous scroll, thumbnail rail, real text selection. The bar is evince minus the settings panel — not a Foxit-shaped power tool.

Download AppImage .deb for Ubuntu / Debian

v0.2.5 · Linux x86_64 · Free & open source

paper.pdf ─ ▢ ✕

3. Method

We adopt a continuous-scroll layout in which all pages stack vertically and render lazily as they enter the viewport. The active page is derived from scroll position, not stored as a separate cursor.

Thumbnails render at low DPR into the side rail. The first twenty are produced eagerly; the rest fill in as the rail is scrolled.

v0.2.5 3 / 14 · 118% (fit)

Features

What you actually want from a reader.

Continuous scroll

All pages, lazily rendered

Pages stack vertically and render only as they enter the viewport. Big PDFs open as fast as small ones.

Thumbnail rail

Always know where you are

Per-page thumbnails in a side panel, current page highlighted. Click to jump.

Real text selection

PDF.js text layer

Select and copy real text, not OCR — the invisible text layer mirrors the rendered glyphs.

Keyboard-driven

Arrow keys, PageUp/Down, Home/End

Every navigation you'd expect. Smooth-scroll between pages, no animation theatre.

Fit-to-width

Page reflows to the window

No fiddling with zoom levels on every open. The page is always the column that fits.

Tauri · Rust · PDF.js

Native Linux

Small binary, AppImage and .deb, real .pdf file association, in-app updater. No Electron.

Krill principles

A simple interface.

Focus One app, one job. One file, one window. No tabs, no project trees, no mode pickers — the work in front of you is the work.

Beauty A locked palette, careful typography, chrome that sits still. The apps shouldn't be the part of your desktop you have to forgive.

Simplicity No settings panel, no plugin system, no power-user knobs. If a feature can't be explained in a sentence, it doesn't ship.

Ownership Your files on your disk in their original format. No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry. MIT licensed; build it yourself if you don't trust ours.

Install

Quick install

One-liner — downloads the AppImage to ~/.local/bin, marks it executable, and registers a launcher entry. Re-run to upgrade.

curl -fsSL https://krill-software.github.io/install.sh | bash -s pdf-reader

or download a package

Download .deb

# install with apt
sudo apt install ./PDF.Reader_0.2.5_amd64.deb

# or with dpkg
sudo dpkg -i PDF.Reader_0.2.5_amd64.deb

Download AppImage

# make executable & run
chmod +x PDF.Reader_0.2.5_amd64.AppImage
./PDF.Reader_0.2.5_amd64.AppImage

Build from source

Build it yourself

Clone, install dependencies, and build with Tauri. Needs Node (with pnpm) and a Rust toolchain.

# clone
git clone https://github.com/krill-software/pdf-reader.git
cd pdf-reader

# build
pnpm install
pnpm tauri build