PDF Presenter is a minimal, PDF-only presenter: a Now/Next presenter view with a strip of clickable thumbnails, and a chrome-free fullscreen Output window on a second display. It renders locally with pdf.js and integrates with nothing.
Status: field proven — released and run on real events. The binaries are not code-signed, so the first launch shows a Gatekeeper or SmartScreen warning; see UNSIGNED.md.
There are two builds, and it matters which one you are on — see Desktop or browser.
The presenter view
- Now and Next side by side.
- A thumbnail of every slide below them — click any one to jump straight to it.
- Clicking the “Next” preview itself jumps to it, which is the fastest way to advance with a mouse.
- A Previous/Next transport bar under the strip.
The two windows carry distinct names in the window switcher — “PDF Presenter — Control” and “PDF Presenter — Output (display)” — so you can tell them apart when alt-tabbing under pressure.
Driving it
Keyboard
Left/Right, Up/Down and Page Up/Page Down all move a slide. Space also advances.
The same keys work whether the presenter view or the Output window has focus. That is the detail that makes a presentation clicker keep working on a single-display machine — or after a stray click has moved focus to the Output window mid-show.
Blanking
B for black, W for white — cuts the Output window to solid colour without losing your
place, mirroring PowerPoint’s own shortcuts. Press again to restore.
Internal PDF links
Links authored into the PDF itself — a table of contents, “back to agenda” links exported from PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides — become clickable on the Now slide and jump to their target page.
Only internal same-document links are wired up; external URLs are left alone.
Sections
Sections come from the PDF’s own top-level outline/bookmarks. If your deck has none, there are no sections — that is the exporter’s doing, not the app’s.
Timed auto-advance
An optional “advance every N seconds” mode. It stops at the last slide rather than looping.
Desktop or browser
Everything renders with pdf.js — the desktop app was never doing that part natively — so the whole presenter view also works as a hosted web app with no backend, at pdf-presenter-lite.stoatworks-labs.com.
Your PDF is never uploaded. There is no server and no upload endpoint: the file is read by the page from your own disk, and the deck, the thumbnails and the Output window all stay inside your browser.
The hosted build is called PDF Presenter Lite, and it says so in its own titlebar, so an operator can tell at a glance which one is on screen.
| Desktop app | Browser | |
|---|---|---|
| Presenter view, thumbnails, transport | yes | yes |
| Fullscreen Output window | chosen display, opened fullscreen | pop-up you place, click to fullscreen |
| Keyboard / clicker, incl. from the Output window | yes | yes |
| Screen blanking, laser pointer, hide cursor | yes | yes |
| Internal PDF links, sections, auto-advance | yes | yes |
| OSC control (+ Companion module) | yes | no |
| Watched folder | yes | no |
| Set as default PDF app, wallpaper export | yes | no |
| Diagnostics bundle | yes | no |
The exclusions are all the same limitation: a web page has no UDP socket, no path-addressable filesystem, and no authority over the desktop it runs on. The UI hides those controls in the browser build rather than showing buttons that cannot work.
If you drive the show from a Stream Deck, use the desktop app.
Two things about the browser Output window
- It opens as a pop-up, so allow pop-ups for the site.
- It opens as a normal window, not fullscreen. Only a gesture inside a window can make that window fullscreen, so it shows a “Click for fullscreen” prompt — and that click is unavoidable. Nothing the opener does can stand in for it.
On Chromium it puts itself on your second display, which needs the Window Management permission. Refuse it and the window simply opens where the browser would have put it and you move it yourself. Either way the click is the same.
Remote control (desktop only)
A UDP OSC address space at /pdfpresenter/... covering slide navigation, black/white, Output
open/close, and system enable/disable. Plain UDP rather than a Windows COM add-in, so it works on
every platform the app ships for.
A Companion module ships alongside for driving it from a Stream Deck.
Three OSC features worth knowing:
- Watched folder — off by default. Lets OSC open a specific PDF by filename without a dialog, for a button wall that loads a deck on cue.
- Laser pointer — mirrors the presenter’s mouse position over the Now preview onto the Output window as a glowing dot.
- Set wallpaper — renders the current slide and sets it as the desktop wallpaper on every connected monitor. macOS and Windows are fully covered; Linux is GNOME-only.
Set as Default PDF App
A titlebar button. What it actually does differs by OS, because neither Windows nor macOS lets a third-party app silently seize the default-app slot:
| OS | What happens |
|---|---|
| Windows | Registers the app as a candidate, then opens Settings for you to confirm |
| macOS | Registers with Launch Services; sets the default directly if duti is installed (brew install duti), otherwise shows the real manual steps |
| Linux | Fully automatic, via xdg-mime |
The status message always says what actually happened — never a fake “done” when the real answer is “you still need to confirm it”.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| Clicker stopped working | It shouldn’t — the keys work from either window. If it did, that is worth reporting. |
| No sections | The PDF has no top-level outline/bookmarks. That is the exporter’s doing. |
| Some links in the deck do nothing | External URLs are deliberately left alone; only same-document links are wired up. |
| Browser: Output window never appeared | Pop-ups are blocked for the site. |
| Browser: Output opened but not fullscreen | Expected — click the prompt. Nothing else can trigger fullscreen. |
| Browser: Output opened on the wrong display | Window Management permission was refused. Move it yourself. |
| Browser: no OSC settings anywhere | Correct — a web page has no UDP socket. Use the desktop app. |
| Auto-advance stopped at the end | By design; it does not loop. |
| macOS/Windows warn the app is unidentified | Unsigned build — see UNSIGNED.md. |
| “Set as default” didn’t finish the job | On Windows you confirm in Settings; on macOS install duti or follow the steps shown. |
| v1.3.1 files are named “pdf-presenter-lite” | That release predates the rename. The hosted build keeps the Lite name for good. |
See also
- UNSIGNED.md — Gatekeeper and SmartScreen
- diagnostics.md — logs and the diagnostics bundle
- README — the full feature list and downloads
- companion-module-pdf-presenter-lite — the Companion module