mupdf - Man Page

MuPDF is a lightweight PDF viewer written in portable C

Examples (TL;DR)

Open a PDF on the first page: mupdf path/to/file
Open a PDF on page 3: mupdf path/to/file 3
Open a password secured PDF: mupdf -p password path/to/file
Open a PDF with an initial zoom level, specified as DPI, of 72: mupdf -r 72 path/to/file
Open a PDF with inverted color: mupdf -I path/to/file
Open a PDF tinted red #FF0000 (hexadecimal color syntax RRGGBB): mupdf -C FF0000
Open a PDF without anti-aliasing (0 = off, 8 = best): mupdf -A 0

mupdf [options] file[page_number]

MuPDF is a document viewer that can show PDF, XPS, EPUB, XHTML, CBZ, and various image formats such as PNG, JPEG, GIF, and TIFF.

A description of each of the supported options is included below.

-b box-name: Use the given page box (MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox, or ArtBox)
-c profile-filename: Set the display ICC profile to the one in the named file.
-p password: Uses the given password to open an encrypted PDF file. The password is tried both as user and owner password.
-r resolution: Changes the initial zoom level, specified as the resolution in dpi. The default value is 72.
-A bits: Changes the anti-aliasing quality, specified as a number of bits between 0 (off) and 8 (best). The default value is 8.
-B RRGGBB: Sets the full-page black tint using hexadecimal color syntax. The default value is 303030.
-C RRGGBB: Sets the full-page white tint using hexadecimal color syntax. The default value is FFFFF0.
-H height: Page height in points for EPUB layout.
-I: Invert colors.
-J: Disable JavaScripts in PDF forms.
-R extraction-options: Enable reflow and set the text extraction options.
-S size: Font size in points for EPUB layout.
-U CSS-file: User style sheet for EPUB layout.
-W width: Page width in points for EPUB layout.
-X: Disable document styles fro EPUB layout.
-Y factor: Set the UI scaling factor.

Left mouse button click: A left click on a hyper link follows the link. In presentation mode advances to the next page.
Right mouse button click: In presentation mode goes back to the previous page.
Left mouse button drag: Pan the page. Panning beyond the bottom or top edge will go to the next or previous page.
Right mouse button drag: Select text in an area. On X11, the selected text can be pasted in another application with a middle click. Press Ctrl+C to copy the selected text to the clipboard. On Windows, the selected text will automatically be copied to the clipboard.
Scroll wheel: Pan page up or down. Does not change page when reaching the bottom or top edge.
Shift + Scroll wheel: Pan page left or right.
Control + Scroll wheel: Zoom in or out.

Page navigation:

Zooming and rotating:

Panning:

Searching:

Miscellaneous:

F1: Show key bindings help.
Escape: Stop searching and/or remove focus from annotation/widget.
<, >: Increase/decrease EPUB/XHTML font size.
r: Reload file.
p: Toggle presentation mode. (mupdf-x11 only)
c: Toggle between color and grayscale rendering. (mupdf-x11 only)
C: Toggle full-page color tinting.
I: Toggle between normal and inverted color rendering.
E: Toggle ICC color mode.
e: Toggle spot color mode.
A: Set bit of anti-aliasing to use. The default is 8. 0 means no anti-aliasing, 9 means no anti-aliasing, centre-of-pixel rule, 10 means no anti-aliasing, any-part-of-a-pixel rule.
P: Show page number and total number of pages.
i: Show dialog box with informationa about the openend document.
B: Change used page box. (MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox, or ArtBox) The active page box is mentioned in the information dialog box.
o: Show/hide document outline panel.
a: Show/hide annotation panel.
R: Show/hide redaction panel.
u: Show/hide undo/redo panel.
Y: Show/hide layers list.
o: Start/stop highlighting links.
F: Start/stop highlighting form widgets.
` F12: Show JS console.
S: Save updated document file.
q: Quit.

SIGHUP: Sending a SIGHUP signal to the mupdf process will also cause the viewed file to be reloaded automatically, for use in e.g. build scripts.

Apr 9, 2025