Sioyek

Sioyek is a PDF viewer with a focus on textbooks and research papers.

Contents

• Installation
• Documentation
• Video Demo
• Features
• Build Instructions
• Buy Me a Coffee (or a Book!)

Install

Official packages

There are installers for Windows, macOS and Linux. See Releases page.

Homebew Cask

There is a homebrew cask available here: https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/sioyek. Install by running:

brew install --cask sioyek

Third-party packages for Linux

If you prefer to install sioyek with a package manager, you can look at this list. Please note that they are provided by third party packagers. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! If you're reporting a bug for a third-party package, please mention which package you're using.

Documentation

You can view the official documentation here.

Feature Video Overview

For a more in-depth tutorial, see this video:

Features

Quick Open

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/125321111-9b29dc00-e351-11eb-873e-94ea30016a05.mp4

You can quickly search and open any file you have previously interacted with using sioyek.

Table of Contents

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/125321313-cf050180-e351-11eb-9275-c2759c684af5.mp4

You can search and jump to table of contents entries.

Smart Jump

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/125321419-e5ab5880-e351-11eb-9688-95374a22774f.mp4

You can jump to any referenced figure or bibliography item even if the PDF file doesn't provide links. You can also search the names of bibliography items in google scholar/libgen by middle clicking/shift+middle clicking on their name.

Overview

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/154683015-0bae4f92-78e2-4141-8446-49dd7c2bd7c9.mp4

You can open a quick overview of figures/references/tables/etc. by right clicking on them (Like Smart Jump, this feature works even if the document doesn't provide links).

Mark

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/125321811-505c9400-e352-11eb-85e0-ffc3ae5f8cb8.mp4

Sometimes when reading a document you need to go back a few pages (perhaps to view a definition or something) and quickly jump back to where you were. You can achieve this by using marks. Marks are named locations within a PDF file (each mark has a single character name for example 'a' or 'm') which you can quickly jump to using their name. In the aforementioned example, before going back to the definition you mark your location and later jump back to the mark by invoking its name. Lower case marks are local to the document and upper case marks are global (this should be very familiar to you if you have used vim).

Bookmarks

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/125322503-1a6bdf80-e353-11eb-8018-5e8fc43b8d05.mp4

Bookmarks are similar to marks except they are named by a text string and they are all global.

Highlights

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/130956728-7e0a87fa-4ada-4108-a8fc-9d9d04180f56.mp4

Highlight text using different kinds of highlights. You can search among all the highlights.

Portals (this feature is most useful for users with multiple monitors)

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/125322657-41c2ac80-e353-11eb-985e-8f3ce9808f67.mp4

Suppose you are reading a paragraph which references a figure which is not very close to the current location. Jumping back and forth between the current paragraph and the figure can be very annoying. Using portals, you can link the paragraph's location to the figure's location. Sioyek shows the closest portal destination in a separate window (which is usually placed on a second monitor). This window is automatically updated to show the closest portal destination as the user navigates the document.

Configuration

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6392321/125337160-e4832700-e363-11eb-8801-0bee58121c2d.mp4

You can customize all key bindings and some UI elements by editing keys_user.config and prefs_user.config. The default configurations are in keys.config and prefs.config.

Build Instructions

Linux

Fedora

Run the following commands to install dependencies, clone the repository and compile sioyek on Fedora (tested on Fedora Workstation 36).

sudo dnf install qt5-qtbase-devel qt5-qtbase-static qt5-qt3d-devel harfbuzz-devel
git clone --recursive https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek
cd sioyek
./build_linux.sh

Generic distribution

1. Install Qt 5 and make sure qmake is in PATH.

   Run qmake --version to make sure the qmake in path is using Qt 5.x.

2. Install libharfbuzz:

sudo apt install libharfbuzz-dev

3. Clone the repository and build:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek
cd sioyek
./build_linux.sh

Windows

1. Install Visual Studio (tested on 2019, other relatively recent versions should work too)
2. Install Qt 5 and make sure qmake is in PATH.
3. Clone the repository and build using 64 bit Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek
cd sioyek
build_windows.bat

Mac

1. Install Xcode.
2. Clone the repository and build: (The code below is in Zsh, which is the default shell on macOS.)

(
setopt PIPE_FAIL PRINT_EXIT_VALUE ERR_RETURN SOURCE_TRACE XTRACE

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek
cd sioyek
chmod +x build_mac.sh

brew install 'qt@5' freeglut mesa harfbuzz

export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/qt@5/bin:$PATH"
#: The above is needed to make =qmake= from =qt= be found.
#: Find the path using =brew info 'qt@5'=.

MAKE_PARALLEL=8 ./build_mac.sh

mv build/sioyek.app /Applications/
sudo codesign --force --sign - --deep /Applications/sioyek.app
)

Donation

If you enjoy sioyek, please consider donating to support its development.