It could be argued that nowadays, most users don’t even need a PDF reader, since many other apps (including web browsers) can pretty much get the job done.
However, a good PDF reader does provide a series of advantages such as the ability to annotate documents, use sticky notes, add bookmarks, as well as highlight, underline, and strike-through text, just to name a few.
NightPDF is a free, open-source, and cross-platform PDF reader that’s all about one thing: helping you put less strain on your eyes while reading PDFs.
What this PDF reader actually does is it allows you to read PDFs with applied filters on top of them. That’s a lot better for your eyes’ health than, say, a PDF reader that has a GUI dark mode, but nothing for the reader itself.
By default, you get three filters to choose from Monochrome, Sepia, and Redeye. These filters mostly target the reading area (and, we have to say, they’re really good), but they also apply various subtle changes to the GUI elements as well. This results in a fairly consistent reading experience.
However, the party piece of the app is that it provides you with the option to create your very own custom filter via a simple menu and various easy-to-operate sliders.
NightPDF brings something quite special, especially when compared to the large majority of, let’s face it, hum-drum PDF readers out there. Yes, it is an Electron-based app, so that means that it’s not as lightweight, or as snappy as your typical native PDF reader.
Really, who cares? It’s not that having the most responsive GUI and the most outrageously low resource consumption matters for an app like this where you won’t actually interact with its GUI elements all that much. To quote the developer on this one: “It uses Electron but my eyes don’t care.”
There is another small limitation. The app doesn’t really offer support for xfa forms and saving forms with filled-in data, but, according to the developer, there are plans to fix this in future releases.
Is NightPDF bad? Definitely not, despite the opinion of many who hate Electron apps for more or less valid reasons. Is NightPDF the best PDF reader? Also no, as it somewhat lacks in the feature department. Is NightPDF useful?
This is the question you’ll have to answer for yourself. If reading PDFs for more than a couple of minutes is part of your daily rutine, and this is done in poorly lit environments, then for sure NightPDF is going to be useful to you.
