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ahrm/sioyek

9,497CAudience · researcherComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

TLDR

Sioyek is a PDF viewer built for reading research papers and textbooks, with smart citation jumping, portals to keep figures visible while you read, and Vim-style bookmarks across your library.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((sioyek))
    What It Does
      PDF viewer
      Research-focused
      Cross-platform
    Smart Navigation
      Smart Jump citations
      Figure references
      Google Scholar link
    Portals
      Link two page positions
      Second window view
      Auto-update on scroll
    Bookmarks and Marks
      Vim-style letter marks
      Global and local marks
      Text-named bookmarks
    Highlights
      Multi-color highlights
      Search all highlights
    Install
      Installers releases page
      Homebrew macOS
      Linux packages
Click or tap to explore — scroll the page freely

Code map

Detail Auto

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Read academic papers and click on citation references to jump directly to the bibliography or the cited figure.

USE CASE 2

Set up a portal between a text passage and a figure many pages away so the figure stays visible in a second window as you read.

USE CASE 3

Organize highlights across multiple PDFs in different colors and search them all from a single interface.

USE CASE 4

Quickly reopen any previously viewed PDF and manage bookmarks across your entire research collection.

Tech stack

C

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Available via official installers, Homebrew on macOS, and Linux package managers, no external dependencies needed.

In plain English

Sioyek is a PDF viewer designed for reading textbooks and academic research papers, with navigation features that address the specific frustrations of that kind of reading. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The features that set it apart from a general PDF reader are mostly about jumping around documents efficiently. Smart Jump lets you click on a citation or figure reference in the text and jump directly to that figure or bibliography entry, even if the PDF file itself does not contain embedded links. You can also send a bibliography item to Google Scholar or Libgen from within the viewer by middle-clicking on it. The Overview feature gives you a small pop-up window showing the referenced content without leaving your current position. Portals let you link two separate positions in a document together, so if a paragraph keeps referring to a figure many pages away, you can set up a portal and have the figure show in a second window that updates automatically as you read, which is most useful with a second monitor. For tracking your place, there are two systems. Marks work like bookmarks keyed to a single letter, where lowercase marks are local to the current document and uppercase marks are global across all documents, following the same convention as the Vim text editor. Bookmarks are similar but named with text strings instead of single letters, and are always global. Highlights let you mark text in several colors and search across all your highlights later. All key bindings and display preferences can be changed by editing plain text config files. The app can quickly search and re-open any file you have previously viewed. Installation is available through official installers on the releases page, a Homebrew cask on macOS, and packages in the repositories for many Linux distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, NixOS, Fedora, and openSUSE. The README also includes build instructions for all three platforms if you prefer to compile from source.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I'm reading a research paper in Sioyek and want to use Smart Jump. How do I click on an in-text citation to jump to the bibliography, and can I send that reference to Google Scholar directly?
Prompt 2
Help me set up a Portal in Sioyek between a section of text and a figure 20 pages away, so the figure stays visible in a second window as I scroll through the paper.
Prompt 3
I want to use Sioyek with Vim-style navigation, how do I set local and global marks with single letters, and how are they different from text-named bookmarks?
Prompt 4
How do I customize Sioyek's key bindings and highlight colors by editing the config file? Walk me through finding the config and changing a specific keybinding.
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