{"slug": "show-hn-gamma-pdf-ai-native-pdf-reader-self-hosted", "title": "Show HN: Gamma PDF – AI-native PDF reader, self-hosted", "summary": "A developer released Gamma PDF, a self-hosted, AI-native PDF reader that opens papers from arXiv or DOI links and turns highlighted sentences or boxed figures into notes with quotes and links back to the page. Gamma PDF answers questions about figures or text with citations to clickable pages, supports iPad annotation with the Apple Pencil plus Notability and Goodnotes import/export, connects to Zotero's cloud as a Zotero client or full library import, deploys via Docker, and exposes a Gamma MCP server for use as a knowledge base with Codex (Claude). The project was posted to Hacker News as a Show HN and had drawn 3 points and 1 comment at the time of the post.", "body_md": "Author here.\n\nI have been reading papers and taking notes for years, using Zotero for the PDFs, Obsidian for the notes, and, recently, an AI chat tab for my questions. Gamma PDF is my attempt to make that one place.\n\nIn Gamma, you open a paper by simply pasting an arXiv (or DOI) link. Highlight a sentence, or drag a box round a figure, and it becomes a note beside the page with the quote and a link back.\n\nYou can ask the AI about a figure or some text, and you get an answer that cites a page you can click.\n\nYou can read and annotate papers on an iPad with the Apple Pencil. Notability (Goodnotes) import/export is supported.\n\nYou can connect to Zotero's cloud and use Gamma as a better Zotero client, or import your whole library with no effort.\n\nYou can deploy Gamma with Docker and read papers from anywhere.\n\nYou can connect Gamma to Codex (Claude) with Gamma MCP, using it as a knowledge base.\n\nTry it without installing: [https://gammapdf.com](https://gammapdf.com)\n\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50495073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50495073)\n\nPoints: 3\n\n# Comments: 1", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gamma-pdf-ai-native-pdf-reader-self-hosted", "canonical_source": "https://gammapdf.com/", "published_at": "2026-11-14 08:08:11+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-11-14 08:19:51.325866+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "ai-products", "agent-protocols", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Gamma PDF", "Zotero", "Obsidian", "arXiv", "Notability", "Goodnotes", "Docker", "Codex"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gamma-pdf-ai-native-pdf-reader-self-hosted", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gamma-pdf-ai-native-pdf-reader-self-hosted.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gamma-pdf-ai-native-pdf-reader-self-hosted.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-gamma-pdf-ai-native-pdf-reader-self-hosted.jsonld"}}