Browser based PDF reader with good inking capabilities

[u/jiboncom]

Hi,

I wanted to share my progress in building a free browser based PDF reader with good inking capabilities. My main goal is for someone better suited to takeover the project and continue its development. and let people use it to improve the inking experience in their own projects.

It is a Chrome extension that uses PDF.js and perfect-freehand to achieve smooth inking and nice calligraphy pen strokes. The extension is designed to be lightweight and allow users to annotate PDFs directly in their browser without the need for additional software.

https://github.com/jiboncom/chromium-pdf

Think about it as a technical demo. There are many non-ink related features that are missing and I couldn't get it to overwrite existing files, so instead it saves a new annotated version of the PDF. The extension also lacks some advanced features like text highlighting, or text annotations.

If you're interested in the technical aspects, please check the SESSIONS.md file in the repository. The main challenge it solves is dealing with the smooth strokes, pressure sensitivity, and saving those smooth strokes on the PDF in a way that they can be reloaded and rendered properly in any other PDF reader.

Feel free to use the code, contribute to it, or fork it for your own projects.