react-pdf-highlighter

Set of React components for PDF annotation.

Note: This is a fork of agentcooper/react-pdf-highlighter with significant UX improvements.

Features

• Built on top of PDF.js
• Text and image highlights
• Popover text for highlights
• Scroll to highlights

Fork Improvements

This fork includes the following enhancements:

Highlight Interaction

• Hover-based action bar: Shows on hover with 200ms delay (prevents flickering), instead of right-click
• Smooth hover transitions: 150ms grace period allows mouse to move from highlight to action bar
• Click protection: Clicking action bar buttons no longer dismisses the popup

Selection Flow

• Mouseup-based selection: Toolbar appears only after releasing mouse, not while dragging
• Morphing toolbar: After saving, toolbar transitions from "save mode" to "edit mode"
• No double-yellow: Browser selection is cleared on save to prevent color stacking

Positioning

• Centered popups: Action bars are horizontally centered above highlights
• Smart clamping: Popups stay within page bounds while maintaining optimal position

Visual

• Better highlight color: More vibrant yellow (rgba(255, 212, 0, 0.4))
• Hover feedback: Highlights brighten slightly on hover

New Props

Install

npm install react-pdf-highlighter

Importing CSS

import "react-pdf-highlighter/dist/style.css";

Example

npm install
npm start

The example demonstrates:

• Slide-over panel pattern
• Zoom controls (Ctrl+scroll or buttons)
• Morphing toolbar (save → edit)
• Comment dialog modal
• In-memory highlight persistence

Basic Usage

import { PdfHighlighter, PdfLoader } from "react-pdf-highlighter";
import "react-pdf-highlighter/dist/style.css";

<PdfLoader url={pdfUrl} beforeLoad={<Spinner />}>
  {(pdfDocument) => (
    <PdfHighlighter
      pdfDocument={pdfDocument}
      enableAreaSelection={(event) => event.altKey}
      onScrollChange={() => {}}
      scrollRef={(scrollTo) => { /* store scrollTo */ }}
      onSelectionFinished={(position, content, hideTipAndSelection, transformSelection) => (
        <MySelectionToolbar
          onSave={() => {
            saveHighlight({ position, content });
            hideTipAndSelection();
          }}
        />
      )}
      renderPopup={(highlight) => (
        <MyActionBar highlight={highlight} />
      )}
      highlights={highlights}
    />
  )}
</PdfLoader>

useHighlights Helper

useHighlights is an optional convenience hook for managing highlight state while keeping your data source external (React Query, Redux, etc.).

import { useState } from "react";
import { useHighlights } from "react-pdf-highlighter";

const [highlights, setHighlights] = useState<IHighlight[]>([]);
const {
  addHighlight,
  updateHighlight,
  deleteHighlight,
  saveComment,
} = useHighlights({
  highlights,
  setHighlights,
});

This pattern lets you merge/split your own persistence models in setHighlights and rehydrate via async fetches.

useZoom Helper

useZoom provides a small controller for zooming the PDF viewer (buttons + ctrl/cmd + wheel).

import { useRef } from "react";
import { useZoom } from "react-pdf-highlighter";

const containerRef = useRef<HTMLDivElement | null>(null);
const { pdfScaleValue, zoomLabel, zoomIn, zoomOut, fitWidth } = useZoom(
  containerRef,
  true,
);

How It Works (Library)

High-level flow

• PdfLoader loads a PDFDocumentProxy using PDF.js and hands it to your render prop.
• PdfHighlighter owns a PDF.js PDFViewer, attaches selection/scroll listeners, and renders highlights into a per-page overlay layer.
• Text selections call onSelectionFinished with a ScaledPosition and text content; area selections are handled by MouseSelection and yield image content.
• Highlights are rendered via highlightTransform (custom) or the default transform, which chooses Highlight for text or AreaHighlight for images and can show a popup via renderPopup.

Data model and coordinates

• ScaledPosition is stored in PDF/viewport-independent units (optionally usePdfCoordinates).
• Position is viewport pixels used for rendering. scaledToViewport and viewportToScaled live in src/lib/coordinates.ts.
• IHighlight is the base interface for highlight objects; HighlightHooks exposes onCreate, onUpdate, and onDelete.

Project layout (library)

• src/index.ts is the public entry point; it re-exports components, types, and the global CSS.
• src/components/ contains PdfHighlighter, PdfLoader, and the overlay UI (Highlight, AreaHighlight, TipContainer).
• src/lib/ contains PDF.js DOM helpers, coordinate conversions, and geometry utilities.
• src/style/ holds CSS modules plus index.css which imports the PDF.js viewer styles.

Build outputs

• Vite builds the package and emits JS + CSS into dist/.
• Types are emitted via vite-plugin-dts and exposed at dist/index.d.ts.
• The published package exposes dist/style.css for styling.

API Reference

See ./example/src/App.tsx for a complete implementation example.

API Improvement Ideas (Future)

These are optional, backward-compatible ideas that could simplify usage and improve extensibility:

• Decouple UI from selection: make onSelectionFinished return data/payload, with an optional renderSelection for UI.
• Consolidate highlight types: collapse HighlightPayload/HighlightBase/IHighlight into a clearer, generic model (typed meta).
• Unified PDF.js options: accept a single pdfjsOptions object (worker/cMap/viewer) to reduce prop surface area.
• Public coordinate helpers: export scaledToViewport/viewportToScaled from the public API for consumers.

License

MIT