SoloPDF
✦ Ours FreeA local-first PDF reader — your highlights become notes
A free, ad-free PDF reader that turns your highlights into Markdown note files automatically, relocating them by text fingerprint even after the PDF updates. Handles form filling, Chinese search, dark mode and encrypted PDFs. MIT-licensed, zero telemetry.
Why we picked it
When you highlight something in a PDF, most apps just lock it into their own private format. SoloPDF flips that: every highlight becomes a Markdown note file you can freely take with you, and text-fingerprint tracking keeps highlights anchored even after the PDF changes.
It's free, MIT-licensed, zero-telemetry, and everything happens locally — no uploads, no watermarks, no paywall. It also ships a CLI and MCP server so AI can read and export your annotations directly. It's our answer to "reading documents should be free too."