MeowPDF is a document viewer that displays PDF files directly inside the Kitty terminal emulator. It combines terminal-based operation with navigation and display capabilities normally associated with graphical PDF readers.
The application is designed to overcome some limitations of conventional terminal PDF viewers, particularly those that display only one complete page at a time. MeowPDF allows users to scroll continuously through documents, magnify individual pages and navigate using either the keyboard or mouse.
Its interface is especially appealing to users who prefer Vim-style keyboard controls while retaining familiar interactions such as clicking hyperlinks and scrolling with a mouse wheel.
MeowPDF uses MuPDF for document rendering and provides extensive configuration options for controlling its appearance and behaviour. Settings are stored in a TOML configuration file.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Continuous document scrolling across multiple PDF pages.
- Zoom in and out to inspect details without changing pages.
- Automatically scales documents to fit the terminal dimensions when opened.
- Vim-style navigation using familiar h, j, k and l keys.
- Customisable keyboard shortcuts for navigation and viewer commands.
- Mouse and touchpad support for scrolling and interacting with documents.
- Clickable hyperlinks with a configurable URI annotation bar.
- Toggle colour inversion for more comfortable reading.
- Adjust page transparency with the alpha display mode.
- Jump directly to the first, last, previous or next page.
- File watching to detect changes to an open document.
- Multi-threaded operation for document processing and rendering.
- Configurable scroll speed, zoom increments, page margins, rendering precision and memory limits.
- Preloading of surrounding pages to improve document navigation.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux and macOS.
Website: github.com/monoamine11231/MeowPDF
Support:
Developer: monoamine11231
License: MIT License
MeowPDF is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| PDF Viewers | |
|---|---|
| KOReader | Document viewer for a wide variety of file formats including PDF |
| Okular | Universal document viewer supporting advanced document features |
| MuPDF | Lightweight PDF and XPS viewer |
| Sioyek | Designed for viewing research papers and technical books |
| PDF.js | JavaScript library that renders Portable Document Format files |
| Koodo Reader | All-in-one ebook reader and PDF viewer |
| Papers | Fork of Evince |
| Evince | Multi-page document viewer |
| Atril | A simple multi-page document viewer for MATE |
| tdf | TUI-based PDF viewer |
| Zathura | Highly customizable and functional document viewer |
| Xreader | Simple multi-page document viewer |
| qpdfview | Tabbed document viewer. It uses Poppler for PDF support |
| Xpdf | PDF viewer and toolkit |
| PreviewQt | Preview all kinds of files |
| llpp | Fast and featureful PDF, EPUB, XPS and CBZ viewer |
| JFBView | PDF and image viewer for the Linux framebuffer |
| hygg | Minimalistic Vim-like TUI document reader |
| fancy-cat | PDF reader for terminal emulators |
| apvlv | PDF/EPUB/TXT/FB2/MOBI/CBZ/HTML …viewer |
| CorePDF | Simple lightweight PDF viewer |
| dodo | Fast and configurable PDF viewer |
| Jumpdf | Keyboard-focused PDF viewer |
| Shelf | Browse and view documents |
| npdfr | Command-line PDF reader prioritizing fast searches |
| NightPDF | Dark mode PDF reader |
| miro | Native PDF viewer |
| Kiview | Quick file preview |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
LinuxLinks helps you discover the best free and open source software for Linux. Explore our extensive collection of recommended applications, including alternatives to popular proprietary software.We also publish software reviews, Linux tutorials, hardware reviews, free programming books and articles covering the wider open source community. Browse our Linux resources to discover more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application we haven't covered? Suggest a program for inclusion. Has your software been featured on LinuxLinks? Display one of our Featured on LinuxLinks badges on your website or GitHub README. |


Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.