npdfr (ncurses PDF reader) is a command-line PDF reader prioritizing fast searches.

I use a lot of PDFs for running tabletop RPGs and often need to search through them. This isn't nearly as snappy as it could be because of the tendency of PDF readers to lazy-render the PDF. I wanted a command-line reader that wouldn't do this and would respond to search queries more immediately.

Really intended for use on Linux only, but should be reasonably easy to adapt to other operating systems.

Complete and ready to use! Please open an issue if you find any problems or it stops working.

Contributions are accepted.

Make sure the following dependencies are available:

• python 3.8+
• pip
• virtualenv
• cmake
• make
• jsoncpp
• ncursesw

Then run the following commands:

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

The following CMake flags are available:

After running the build commands, run this command:

sudo make install

If you have installed the program globally run:

npdfr /path/to/file.pdf

Otherwise run ./run.sh /path/to/file.pdf in the project root directory. You can open multiple PDFs by supplying multiple file names.

The keybindings are mostly the same as the less utility.

Developed by Amini Allight, licensed under the GPL 3.0.