{"slug": "i-got-tired-of-switching-apps-to-work-with-pdfs-so-i-built-a-vs-code-extension", "title": "I got tired of switching apps to work with PDFs, so I built a VS Code extension", "summary": "A developer built PDF Viewer & Editor, an open-source VS Code extension that lets users annotate PDFs inside the editor—highlighting, underlining, commenting, adding rich-text notes with LaTeX math, drawing shapes, filling forms, and signing documents. Edits are saved as standard PDF annotations so files remain compatible with Acrobat, Preview, and browsers, and the extension integrates with GitHub Copilot so users can ask it to explain or summarize passages or invoke @pdf in Copilot Chat. It also supports rotating, reordering, and inserting pages, printing, and undo.", "body_md": "[VS Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/) is where I do most of my work, but whenever I needed to properly review a PDF, I kept switching to another app just to highlight a passage, leave a comment, or sign a document.\n\nI wanted to do all of that without breaking my workflow, especially when reading research papers or working with technical documents.\n\nSo I built [PDF Viewer & Editor](https://github.com/mantasu/pdf-editor):\n\nIt lets you annotate PDFs directly in VS Code: highlight and underline text, leave comments, write rich-text notes with [LaTeX](https://latex-project.org/) maths, draw shapes, fill forms, and sign documents. It also integrates with [GitHub Copilot](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/overview), so you can ask it to explain or summarize a passage, or use `@pdf` directly in Copilot Chat.\n\nThe fun part wasn't just adding annotation tools - it was making sure the saved edits would still work outside VS Code. Annotations are saved using standard PDF annotations, so your edited documents can still be opened in [Acrobat](https://www.adobe.com/uk/acrobat.html), [Preview](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/preview/welcome/mac), and browsers.\n\nYou can also rotate, reorder, and insert pages, print, and undo changes.\n\nIf you've ever had to jump between your editor and a PDF app while reviewing papers or filling out documents, I'd love to know if this is something you'd use :)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-got-tired-of-switching-apps-to-work-with-pdfs-so-i-built-a-vs-code-extension", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/mantasu/i-got-tired-of-switching-apps-to-work-with-pdfs-so-i-built-a-vs-code-extension-e9l", "published_at": "2026-10-17 21:29:59+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-17 21:37:21.848356+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools", "ai-tools", "ai-products"], "entities": ["VS Code", "GitHub Copilot", "Adobe Acrobat", "Apple Preview", "LaTeX", "PDF Viewer & Editor"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-got-tired-of-switching-apps-to-work-with-pdfs-so-i-built-a-vs-code-extension", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-got-tired-of-switching-apps-to-work-with-pdfs-so-i-built-a-vs-code-extension.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-got-tired-of-switching-apps-to-work-with-pdfs-so-i-built-a-vs-code-extension.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-got-tired-of-switching-apps-to-work-with-pdfs-so-i-built-a-vs-code-extension.jsonld"}}