A local-first PDF annotation editor built with Flutter. Everything runs on your device — no server, no accounts, no internet required.
Clean start screen — open any PDF from your file system:
Viewer with zoom, page navigation and a thumbnail sidebar:
Annotating a document — text, highlight and freehand drawing layered on top, original file untouched:
- Open PDFs from your file system and navigate them with zoom and a thumbnail sidebar
- Add text on top of any page — pick font family, size, and color; move or delete annotations freely
- Whiteout ("tipp-ex") — cover original content with an opaque rectangle, then write over it
- Freehand drawing — sketch directly on the page
- Highlight areas with a translucent color overlay
- Undo / redo across the full annotation history
- Export to a new PDF — original file is never modified; annotations are rasterized and embedded with your chosen fonts
- Save and reopen sessions — your editing session (PDF copy + annotations) is stored locally so you can continue later
- Light and dark theme, responsive layout (desktop sidebar panel / mobile bottom sheet)
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Framework | Flutter 3.44+ / Dart 3.12+ |
| State management | Riverpod 3.x |
| PDF rendering | pdfrx 2.x (pdfium via FFI) |
| PDF export | pdf 3.x + printing 5.x |
| Immutable models | freezed 3.x |
| File picking | file_selector (official Flutter plugin) |
| Fonts embedded in export | Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Merriweather, Source Code Pro (OFL / Apache-2.0) |
Architecture: Clean Architecture feature-first in three layers (domain / data / presentation). The domain layer has zero Flutter or third-party imports.
| Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| Windows | ✅ Stable — built and tested |
| Android | ✅ Stable — built and tested on device (incl. saving projects opened via the Android file picker / SAF) |
| Linux | ✅ Stable — built and tested on Ubuntu (GTK window, pdfrx/pdfium rendering, full open → annotate → save → reopen flow) |
| iOS / macOS / Web | Out of scope |
- Flutter stable ≥ 3.44 with Dart ≥ 3.12. The exact version this project is
developed and tested against is pinned in
.tool-versions(flutter 3.44.1-stable); if you use asdf it will pick it up automatically (asdf install). - Windows: Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload + Windows Developer Mode enabled (required by pdfrx Native Assets)
- Android: Android Studio / SDK, accepted licenses (
flutter doctor --android-licenses) - Linux:
clang cmake ninja-build pkg-config libgtk-3-dev
Verify your setup:
flutter doctor# Windows
flutter run -d windows
# Android (device or emulator connected)
flutter run -d <device-id>
# Linux
flutter run -d linux# Windows
flutter build windows --release
# Output: build\windows\x64\runner\Release\
# Android APK
flutter build apk --release
# Android App Bundle
flutter build appbundle --release
# Linux
flutter build linux --releasedart run build_runner build --delete-conflicting-outputs- Local-first: PDFs never leave your device
- Original untouched: export always creates a new file
- No accounts, no tracking, no ads, no subscriptions
- 100% offline
- Open-source dependencies only (MIT / BSD / Apache-2.0)
This project is released under the MIT License — see LICENSE.
All runtime dependencies are MIT, BSD-3, or Apache-2.0. Font assets are OFL-1.1 or Apache-2.0 and may be embedded and redistributed.