neoview 0.2

NeoView PDF viewer with rectangular crop/measure tool

NeoView

NeoView is a desktop PDF viewer for Linux and Windows built with PySide6 and PyMuPDF. It started as a precise crop and measurement tool, and has grown into a practical technical-PDF viewer with fast reloads, search, bookmarks, annotations, thumbnails, outline navigation, and export workflows.

It is aimed at LaTeX, proofreading, QA, layout review, and document-inspection workflows where you want a lightweight viewer but still need tools beyond simple reading.

Highlights

• Live PDF reload while external tools rebuild the file
• Multi-tab viewing with per-document session restore
• Text find panel with live results, search navigation, and highlight overlays
• Outline, bookmarks, thumbnails, and page info side panels
• Measurement and rectangular selection tools with pt, pica, and mm readouts
• Annotation workflows:
  • highlight, underline, note
  • rectangle, ellipse, text-box, line, arrow, freehand
  • on-canvas drawing and properties editing
  • export a PDF copy with annotations embedded
• Native PDF annotation visibility in the viewer
• Font inspection for text under the cursor
• PNG export from selections at multiple DPI values
• Keyboard-driven navigation, editing, and selection adjustment
• Automated test coverage for logic and Qt interaction flows

Repo Overview

Main code areas

• src/neoview/ui
  Qt main window, viewer widget, dialogs, annotation UI, toolbars, and page rendering.
• src/neoview/models
  Typed state records for annotations, bookmarks, search results, and per-tab state.
• src/neoview/persistence
  Sidecar storage for annotations and bookmarks.
• src/neoview/utils
  Small helpers such as unit formatting.
• src/neoview/assets
  Packaged icons and app assets.
• tests
  Fast pytest coverage, including pytest-qt interaction tests.

Important entry points

• App entry: src/neoview/app.py
• Main window: src/neoview/ui/main_window.py
• Viewer widget: src/neoview/ui/pdf_view.py
• Legacy shim: pdf_crop_measure.py
• Website page: docs/index.html

Feature Overview

Viewing and navigation

• Open one or many PDFs in tabs
• Reuse an already-open tab for the same file
• Page navigation with page combo, PgUp/PgDn, Home/End
• Fit Width, Fit Page, Actual Size, custom zoom, Ctrl+wheel, and pinch zoom
• Rotation controls and fullscreen mode
• Outline panel for PDF table of contents
• Thumbnail panel for quick page jumping
• Page info / document info panel

Search

• Find panel with live typing updates
• Explicit next/previous search navigation
• Highlight overlays for current and visible-page matches
• Search state preserved per tab
• Batched search execution to keep the UI responsive on larger PDFs

Selection and measurement

• Drag to create a selection rectangle
• Resize by handles or keyboard
• Move by drag or keyboard
• Measurements in points, picas, and millimeters
• Copy measurement values to the clipboard
• Export selection as PNG at multiple DPI levels

Annotations

• Create annotations from a selection or directly on the canvas
• Supported types include:
  • highlight
  • underline
  • note
  • text-box
  • rectangle
  • ellipse
  • line
  • arrow
  • freehand
• Annotation list with filtering
• Annotation properties editing
• Delete annotations from the list, keyboard, or context menu
• Export annotated PDF copies
• Read-only viewing of annotations already embedded in the source PDF

Bookmarking and session behavior

• Add custom bookmarks per document
• Rename and delete bookmarks
• Restore last page and zoom per file
• Auto-reload on file changes for LaTeX / Typst / generated PDF workflows

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• PySide6
• PyMuPDF

Installation

Install from PyPI

pip install neoview

Install from source

python3 -m pip install .

Editable development install

python3 -m pip install -e .[dev]

Recommended local launcher

./run.sh

This bootstraps a virtual environment and launches NeoView.

Running NeoView

Installed command

neoview
neoview /path/to/document.pdf

Module entry

python -m neoview

Legacy shim

python pdf_crop_measure.py
python pdf_crop_measure.py /path/to/document.pdf

Windows

Install via pip

py -m pip install neoview
neoview

Standalone executable

Tagged releases can include a prebuilt neoview.exe from GitHub Releases.

Build the Windows executable yourself

py -m pip install .[dev]
pyinstaller neoview.spec

Output:

dist\neoview.exe

Docker / Container Usage

Build

docker build -t pdf-measure .

Wayland

docker run -it --rm \
  -e XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u) \
  -e WAYLAND_DISPLAY=$WAYLAND_DISPLAY \
  -e QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland \
  -v $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/$WAYLAND_DISPLAY:/run/user/$(id -u)/$WAYLAND_DISPLAY \
  -v /path/to/pdfs:/pdfs \
  pdf-measure /pdfs/document.pdf

X11

xhost +local:docker
docker run -it --rm \
  -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY \
  -e QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb \
  -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
  -v /path/to/pdfs:/pdfs \
  pdf-measure /pdfs/document.pdf

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+O	Open PDF
Ctrl+Q	Quit
Ctrl+F	Find
Ctrl+Shift+F	Toggle search panel
Ctrl+Shift+O	Toggle navigation panel
Ctrl+Shift+T	Toggle thumbnails panel
Ctrl+Shift+I	Toggle page info panel
Ctrl+D	Add bookmark
Ctrl+Wheel	Zoom in or out
W	Fit width
F	Fit page
Ctrl+1	Actual size
PgUp / PgDn	Previous / next page
Home / End	First / last page
Ctrl+L / Ctrl+R	Rotate left / right
Ctrl+0	Reset rotation
Ctrl+C	Copy measurements or selected text context
Ctrl+S	Export selection as PNG
Ctrl+Shift+H	Add highlight from selection
Ctrl+Shift+U	Add underline from selection
Ctrl+Shift+N	Add note from selection
Arrow	Move selection by 1 pt
Shift+Arrow	Move selection by 10 pt
Ctrl+Arrow	Resize selection by 1 pt
Ctrl+Shift+Arrow	Resize selection by 10 pt
Delete / Backspace	Delete selected annotation
Escape	Clear selection

Development

Install dependencies

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install -e .[dev]

Run tests

PYTHONPATH=src pytest -q

On Windows PowerShell:

$env:PYTHONPATH = "src"
python -m pytest -q

Current automated coverage

• Unit tests for measurement and state helpers
• Sidecar persistence tests
• UI behavior tests for reload, session restore, and navigation
• pytest-qt interaction tests for:
  • search
  • reload
  • thumbnails
  • outline navigation
  • bookmarks
  • annotation create/edit/delete flows
  • export flows
  • text selection and copy

The suite is intended to stay fast enough for local development and CI.

Packaging

• Canonical metadata: pyproject.toml
• Older editable-install support: setup.py
• Windows build spec: neoview.spec
• Publish helper: publish.sh

License

MIT