Light PDF Editing is coming to Firefox

Mozilla is working on improvements to Firefox's PDF Reader. Firefox will soon support light PDF editing tasks such as text or ink annotations.

The built-in Firefox PDF Reader is a popular tool to view PDF documents in the browser. Firefox users may use it to display local PDF documents or PDF documents from the Internet in the browser.

Some Firefox users like the idea of opening PDF documents in the browser, as it is a quick and uncomplicated process. Others prefer to use third-party tools and disable the PDF viewer. External tools may offer better functionality or security features.

The Firefox PDF Reader supports form filling, but that is the extent of its capabilities at this point. Mozilla has plans to improve the functionality of the built-in Firefox PDF Reader by adding light editing tools to it.

Firefox PDF Editor

The editor is in development currently, but Firefox Nightly users may enable it already to take it for a test ride.

1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
2. Confirm that you accept the risk and want to continue.
3. Search for pdfjs.annotationEditorMode and set the value of the preference to 0.

A restart of Firefox is not required. When you load a PDF document in Firefox now, regardless of whether it is a local PDF file or an online one, you find new editing options in the main toolbar.

The following tools are included in the Firefox PDF Editor at the time of writing:

• Text Annotation tool with options to change the font color and size.
• Ink Annotation tool with options to change the link color and thickness.

Closing Words

Mozilla is improving Firefox's built-in PDF viewer; that is a good thing. The PDF Viewer will support text and ink annotations, and maybe other features that Mozilla could introduce at a later stage in development.

Several other browsers, including Microsoft Edge, offer a superior editing experience at the time. Microsoft's browser supports text and ink annotations, but also text highlighting. The new PDF editing options close the gap to browsers like Edge, which is probably one of Mozilla's goals.

Now You: do you prefer to view PDFs in the browser or other tools? What about PDF editing? (via Techdows)

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