PDF reader for legal materials
An independent PDF reader for lawyers
Fast read, search, annotate, organize, OCR, and form signing for case files, evidence, judgments, contracts, and scanned materials.
Why FaroPDF
FaroPDF starts from the daily pain points of lawyers handling case files, evidence, judgments, contracts, and scanned materials: slow open, weak search, scattered annotations, hit-or-miss OCR, and one more pass of cleanup before delivery. It puts fast read, annotation, OCR, page organization, and signing in one restrained desktop window, and treats "high-risk operations never overwrite the original PDF" as a hard constraint.
Core capabilities
PDF.js loading, virtualized rendering (only visible and adjacent pages), four view modes (continuous / single / double / fit width), eight zoom presets plus rotation, keyboard page-turn, thumbnails, local reading-position restore, on-demand full-text index and highlight.
Nine annotation types (highlight / underline / strikethrough / note / text box / rectangle / arrow / freehand / stamp) plus a six-color palette, five stamp templates, real Chinese stamp rendering (Source Han Sans SC + pdf-lib fontkit embedding), grouped summary panel (by type / color / page), and case-material checklist export.
Real pdf-lib rewrite: rotate / delete / reorder, multi-select and shift+click range selection, RiskConfirmDialog before delete, placeholder Undo, and default output `*-organized.pdf` that never overwrites the source.
Real OCR bridge: local ocrmypdf plus cloud PaddleOCR / MinerU. Persistent task queue with startup recovery, four Tauri commands, real lopdf-based scan cleanup, and a 9-state quality check (searchable-page ratio / keyword hit / CER / size ratio / elapsed).
pdf-lib rewrite, form / annotation flatten with dual strategy, text and image watermark, Bates numbering, plain page numbers, A4 evidence image composition, and court-upload compression presets (5/10/20/50 MB Canvas API JPEG DCTDecode real re-encoding with target-size verification).
AcroForm field detection (text / dropdown / checkbox / radio), fill values, signature images, the FormsPanel overlay, and flatten export (a single failure is wrapped as `failed` and does not abort the rest).
Tailored to the lawyer workflow: long case files, scanned materials, evidence, annotation rollup, page numbering, and signing delivery. High-risk operations save as a new PDF instead of overwriting the source.
Default save directory, OCR provider, privacy confirmation, and redacted API keys. Update checks run through the `tauri-plugin-updater` 10-state machine (with fallback), and the `autoUpdateCheck` setting can disable automatic checks (DEC-056).
Workflow
Download
v0.1.1 is now available. macOS (Apple Silicon / Intel) and Windows installers can be downloaded from GitHub Releases.
If macOS shows "cannot verify developer" or "damaged" on first launch, drag `FaroPDF.app` to Applications and run `xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/FaroPDF.app` in Terminal.