PDF.js
PDF viewer in JavaScript included in Mozilla Firefox
PDF.js is a JavaScript library that renders Portable Document Format (PDF) files using the web standards-compliant HTML5 Canvas. The project is led by the Mozilla Corporation after Andreas Gal launched it (initially as an experiment) in 2011.
History and application
PDF.js was originally created as an extension for Firefox and is included in Firefox since 2012 (version 15), and enabled by default since 2013 (version 19). It was added to Firefox for Android in 2023 (version 111).
The project was created to provide a way for viewing PDF documents natively in the web browser, which prevents potential security risks when opening PDF documents outside a browser, as the code for displaying the document is sandboxed in a browser. Its implementation uses the Canvas element from HTML5, which allows for fast rendering speeds.
PDF.js is also used in Thunderbird, ownCloud, Nextcloud, and is available as a browser extension for Google Chrome/Chromium, Pale Moon and SeaMonkey.
It can be integrated or embedded in a web or native application to enable PDF rendering and viewing, and allows advanced usages such as Server-side rendering.
Many web applications, including Dropbox, Slack, and LinkedIn Learning integrate PDF.js to enable previewing PDF documents.
Behavior
According to a benchmark by Mozilla, PDF.js is performant for viewing most common PDF files, while it may have some issues with large or 'graphics-heavy' documents.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “PDF.js” is pDF viewer in JavaScript included in Mozilla Firefox. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through viewer, JavaScript and included, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q693274. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “PDF.js” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.