Read scientific documents in any language, with realtime translation, on any platform. Powered by PDFMathTranslate.
- Layout preservation: Preserve formulas, tables, and key information while keeping translated pages close to the original layout.
- Realtime translation: Detect layouts and translate as you read, without waiting for the entire document to finish.
- Translation options: Choose translation engines, services, languages, and full-document or nearby-page translation.
- Bilingual reading: Click detected paragraphs to switch between original text and translation.
- Flexible navigation: Read with thumbnails, zoom, vertical or horizontal scrolling, and one-, two-, or four-page layouts.
- Multiple documents: Open PDFs in independent windows and restore reading positions and display settings when reopening them.
- Reading links: Save bidirectional links between search results and their reading origins for easy reference.
- Highlights and comments: Highlight key passages and add comments to record your reading notes.
| Date | Feature | Contributor |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-06 | build Vue Pages showcase with cached reader translations | @reycn |
| 2026-10-05 | support custom language codes and streamline regression tests | @reycn |
| 2026-10-05 | add information categories, release updates and provider availability | @reycn |
| 2026-10-05 | improve settings, diagnostics and reader UX | @reycn |
| 2026-10-05 | configure kernel translation services and developer diagnostics | @reycn |
| 2026-10-05 | localize existing advanced settings | @reycn |
| 2026-10-05 | expand translation languages by kernel with localized names | @reycn |
| Platform | macOS | Windows | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screenshot |  |
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| Download link | GitHub Actions | GitHub Actions | GitHub Actions |
| Installation | Extract the macOS ZIP, move PDFMathReader.app to /Applications, and open it. |
Double-click PDFMathReader-win32-x64.exe (or the ia32 version for 32-bit Windows). |
Extract the .tar.gz for your CPU, then run ./PDFMathReader from its folder. |
| Additional notes | If macOS says the app is “damaged”, confirm the download is trusted, then run sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/PDFMathReader.app in Terminal. Enter your Mac login password when prompted (it is not displayed), then reopen the app. |
The portable app includes its runtime. Launching it registers the PDF Open with PDFMathReader menu; launch it again after moving the executable. | Choose the package matching your CPU architecture. |
Contributing
- Tooling: Bun manages dependencies and scripts; Vue/Vite build the UI, while Electron and Express run on Node.js. Commit
bun.lockwhen changing dependencies. - Tests: run
bun run build, thenbun run test; CI scripts usenode --test .github/scripts/*.test.*. Add focused regression coverage for behavior changes; see test priorities. - CI: Code style checks formatting and lint; Packaging builds and launches apps on macOS, Windows and Linux. Release publishes successful default-branch packages when the version increases.
- Style: run
bun run style:fixbefore committing. Husky automatically formats and checks staged files, blocking unresolved errors. Prettier/ESLint cover JS and Vue, Ruff covers Python, and swift-format covers Swift; see setup and rules.
Local development
Install Bun 1.3.14 and Node.js 22.22.1 or newer. To run the desktop app from source:
bun install --frozen-lockfile
bun run desktopBuild on the matching platform:
# macOS (requires a signing identity; add --unsigned to skip signing)
bun run package:mac
# Windows
bun run package:winFrontend libraries (Vue, MacVue, and Fluent UI) are build dependencies: Vite includes them in dist. Node dependencies used by the server or Electron main process remain runtime dependencies. Install with bun install --frozen-lockfile before building; a production-only install cannot build or package the app.
The About page includes GitHub Release update status, a manual check button, and an automatic check switch (enabled by default). Packaged apps check lazily after startup and every six hours; no published release is shown as a normal empty state. Stable version tags must use vX.Y.Z or X.Y.Z. Matching release assets use PDFMathReader-<platform>-<arch>.zip (macOS), .exe (Windows), or .tar.gz (Linux). Available updates open the matching download, or the release page when that asset is absent; installation remains manual.
The About page shows the application, installed kernels and UV versions. Each Vite build embeds dist/build-info.json with the package version and the latest ten conventional feat commits (including scoped and breaking features); release CI checks out the full Git history. The installed app reads this snapshot without Git or network access. Builds from a source archive without Git show an empty update list.
The default Electron package bundles Express and PDF utilities into the backend/main scripts, retaining their licenses. It copies only external runtime modules into the staged node_modules; native PDF Inspector bindings and the PDF.js/DOMMatrix fallback for unsupported native targets remain available. Electron itself and packaging tools are supplied by the build toolchain.
For browser development, set OPENAI_API_KEY, run bun run dev, and open 127.0.0.1:5173. Use OPENAI_MODEL to override the default model. Desktop environment variables can be loaded with Launch PDFMathReader.command.
bun run test
bun run buildThe application suite contains 29 risk-focused tests. See test priorities for retained coverage and the policy for adding cases.
Details
PDFMathReader uses Vue 3 and PDF.js for the reader, Electron for the desktop app, and Express for the local backend. Vite supports frontend development and builds; pdf-lib handles PDF manipulation.
Each desktop window has its own renderer and backend running in an Electron utility process. The main process manages windows, menus, credentials, recent documents, and preferences. A sandboxed preload provides desktop IPC; backend requests use authenticated HTTP on 127.0.0.1.
Rendering, layout analysis, and translation run independently. Pages and thumbnails are virtualized, PDF.js and layout analysis load on demand, and rendering caches have bounded memory use. Each document is uploaded to its local backend once; subsequent requests use its document ID. Outdated translation work is cancelled when the document, language, or kernel changes.
Translation text is cached across documents and app restarts. Identical requests to the same service and model reuse the saved result, including requests from the math translation kernels. Languages, prompts, and other translation options remain part of the cache key. Concurrent identical requests share one service call; failed or empty responses are not cached.
| Setting | Engine | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Ultra fast | PDF Inspector | Paragraph overlays on the original PDF |
| Fast | PDFMathTranslate | Translated PDF pages with formula preservation |
| Precise | PDFMathTranslate-next | Translated PDF pages with more detailed typesetting |
PDF rendering and layout analysis stay local. Translation sends document text to OpenAI and may incur API charges. Fast and Precise run in separate app-managed Python environments installed with uv, and access OpenAI through the backend proxy. API keys remain outside the renderer.
Saved desktop keys are encrypted with Electron safeStorage and macOS Keychain protection. A saved key overrides OPENAI_API_KEY; clearing it restores the environment fallback. Saving is disabled when secure storage is unavailable.
Desktop data is stored in the app directory under ~/Library/Application Support/: credentials, recent documents, translation/layout caches, and kernel environments. Browser-development caches use .cache/translations/. Caches and temporary PDFs can contain document content; Clear on the start page removes recent-document history only.
In browser development, Express and Vite run in a standalone Node.js process. Native menus, desktop IPC, and secure desktop key storage are available only in the desktop app.
Limitations
- Platform support: macOS is the tested platform. Windows and Linux have platform-specific styles, but native runtime validation is pending. Packaging commands target macOS arm64 and Windows x64.
- Layout fidelity: Ultra fast uses geometric paragraph grouping and text overlays. Complex tables, rotated text, unusual backgrounds, and long translations may not retain the original typography. Math-kernel output depends on upstream layout handling.
- Scanned documents: scanned PDFs require OCR, which this app does not implement.
- Translation requirements: translation needs an OpenAI API key and network access. Fast and Precise require separately installed math kernels through
uv. - Scope: this is a local reader and translation app, not a complete PDF editing or export tool.
- Validation: the 30 core regression tests cover backend and reader support logic. Mock-provider checks do not establish live OpenAI translation quality or API-key validity.
PDFMathReader is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. See LICENSE for the full text. PDFMathTranslate and PDFMathTranslate-next are also AGPL-3.0 projects. Their runtime installations retain upstream license files; other dependencies retain their respective licenses.
Many thanks to OpenAI, Anthropic, Warp, Immersive Translate, and SiliconFlow for their support.