PDF Tools README

Prerequisites

GNU/Linux OS

convert

http://www.imagemagick.org

GNU Emacs 24

Preferably with imagemagick support.

poppler-glib

Any version will do, but some will do better.

>= 0.12

Extracting outline and document title.

>= 0.16

Extracting metadata and document text.

>= 0.22

Searching case-sensitive.

glib

This is obviously a prerequisite for poppler-glib. I don’t know the minimally required version at the moment.

Building

This should be as simple as

./configure && make

which compiles the c source and creates a ELPA package.

Installation

Assuming the epdfinfo server build correctly and a Emacs package was created. The next step is to install this package, with make via

make install

or

make EMACS=/path/to/emacs install

Alternatively from within Emacs via

M-x package-install-file RET pdf-tools-${VERSION}.tar RET

Finally put

(pdf-tools-install)

in your .emacs and that’s it.

Usage (in a nutshell):

Isearch

Press C-s to enter isearch, try it. While in isearch mode, C-v and C-M-v turn pages, C-b enters batch mode (try it), C-d enters dark mode (try it).

Outline

Press o to enter the outline buffer, assuming the PDF has one. Or use the menu-bar item ‘PDF Outline’, the tool bar or the imenu command.

Links and the History

After DocView has converted the document, you should start to see links underlined by some red pixel. (This is purely a visual cue.) Click on such a link to activate it, or press f and select it with the keyboard. Press B to return to the original page and N to move (again) to the page of the just followed link.

Miscellaneous

Drag the mouse over a region, this kills the selected text. Press C-w to copy the whole page. M-s o invokes pdf-occur (but no regexp). The key I displays some meta-information about the document, s p and s w optimize the display to the page, respectively window-width. C-c C-d enters dark mode, which influences the color choices made (but not retroactively).