Krzysztof Kowalczyk blog

SumatraPDF new features: June 16, 2026

2026-10-17T21:04:26+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Many new printing options

The Advanced print dialog has new options, each with a matching -print-settings value:

Print each page at its document page size (paper=auto) for documents with mixed page sizes (#533)
Choose paper source by document page size (bin=auto) (#349)
Center page horizontally on the paper (center) (#348)
Stretch pages to fill paper (stretch) (#2220)
Rotate printout (rotate=90|180|270) (#1246)

The new PrinterDefaults.Collate setting sets the default of the Collate checkbox, and collate / nocollate control it from the command line (#1558). The print job is named after the file name, not the full path (#2166).

Smarter command-line printing

Printing from the command line uses print defaults stored in the PDF itself (scaling, number of copies, duplex, paper tray). -print-settings values override them, and ignore-pdf-print-settings turns them off (#534). -print-to / -print-to-default return a different exit code for each kind of failure, so scripts can tell why printing failed (#3478). -print-dialog now shows the print dialog even when combined with -print-to (#3975).

Convert Image to PDF

Save an image as a PDF: right-click an image, or an open image document, and choose Selected Image / Convert page to PDF, or pick PDF as the format in the Save Image dialog (#949).

Triple-click selects a line

Triple-click selects a whole line of text. Double-click still selects a word (#694).

Remove button on Frequently Read thumbnails

When you hover over a thumbnail on the Frequently Read home page, a ✕ button in its corner removes that document from the list (#283).

Favorites improvements

Favorites for files with long names show your favorite’s name before the file name, so the name stays visible (#829). In the Favorites sidebar, the arrow keys move through the list without jumping to each favorite, and Enter opens the selected one (#1936). Clicking the current bookmark again navigates to it (#2465).

New DDE commands and forced on/off toggles

For programs that control SumatraPDF through DDE, there are new requests: [GetFileState] (path, zoom, view mode, current page and page count), [GetOpenFiles], [GetMousePos] (document position under the mouse) and [GotoPageWord] (find a word only on a given page). [SetView] accepts zoom 0 to keep the current zoom (#483, #5060, #1411, #3085, #5068). Toggle commands such as CmdToggleFullscreen, CmdToggleToolbar or CmdToggleContinuousView accept an on/off argument, e.g. [CmdToggleFullscreen on] (#5067).

Smaller improvements

Case-insensitive search treats German ß as ss (#933).
In presentation mode, pressing the black-screen (.) or white-screen (W) key again returns to the slide (#2820).
EbookUI.FontSize can be larger than 30 (#2276).
Tab tooltips follow the FullPathInTitle setting (#3024).
The “found text” / “no matches” message goes away by itself (#4473).
Save As shows a warning when a file can’t be written instead of failing silently (#1016).

More: changes from June 16, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: June 15, 2026

2026-10-17T15:27:44+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

JPEG XL images

SumatraPDF opens JPEG XL (.jxl) images using the official libjxl decoder (#1943).

Password on the command line

Use the -pwd command-line argument to open password-protected documents without the password prompt (#906).

sumatrapdf-tool.exe for command-line tools

The built-in MuPDF command-line tools (draw, convert, info, merge, clean and others) are also available as sumatrapdf-tool.exe. It is a console program, so its output works properly in cmd.exe and PowerShell, including with pipes.

Select annotation and form text; select by word while dragging

Text in free text annotations and in form fields can be selected and searched again, like in version 3.1 and Acrobat (#1649). After a double-click, keep holding the button and drag to extend the selection one whole word at a time (#4761).

“Rendering page N…” for slow pages

In single-page mode, going to a page that takes a long time to render shows “Rendering page N…” instead of leaving the previous page on screen.

More: changes from June 15, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: June 14, 2026

2026-10-17T00:16:50+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Table of contents and favorites modes in the command palette

The command palette has two new modes. % mode (Navigate Table Of Contents, CmdNavigateTableOfContents, Shift + F12, or type % at the document) shows the whole table of contents, with the entry nearest the current page already selected, so you can jump to any chapter by typing part of its name (#5676). $ mode (Navigate Favorites, CmdNavigateFavorites, or type $ at the document) lists favorites, starting with those of the current document, then other documents.

More -print-settings options

-print-settings accepts last and negative page numbers in page ranges, e.g. -3-last for the last three pages (#4967). docname= sets the print job name (#5065). portrait / landscape set the printer’s paper orientation (#5353).

When ZoomIncrement is 0, Ctrl + mouse wheel steps through the ZoomLevels list (#5662). Link tooltips show web addresses decoded (e.g. spaces instead of %20) (#4836).

More: changes from June 14, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: June 13, 2026

2026-10-16T21:17:46+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Remove Deleted Files From History

Remove Deleted Files From History (CmdRemoveDeletedFilesFromHistory, command palette) removes files that no longer exist on disk from the list of recently opened files.

Reuse instance respects virtual desktops

With ReuseInstance, opening a file uses a SumatraPDF window on the current virtual desktop, or opens a new window there, instead of switching to another desktop (#5630).

Literal % in external viewer command lines

In ExternalViewers command lines, %% stands for a literal %, e.g. %%d is passed to the program as %d (#5583).

More: changes from June 13, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: June 12, 2026

2026-10-14T01:18:22+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

The toolbar has Back and Forward buttons. Navigation history now also includes places you scrolled to and stayed on, not only table of contents and link jumps.

Toggle citation hover preview

Toggle Citation Hover Preview (CmdToggleHoverPreview, command palette) turns the citation hover preview on or off. The CitationHoverDelay setting sets how long you hover before it appears (-1 turns it off).

Switching the view mode with Ctrl + 6/7/8 shows a short popup naming the new mode (#5464). Sidebar fonts scale with the app’s font size settings (#5564).

-for-testing command-line flag

-for-testing starts a separate instance that doesn’t restore the previous session and doesn’t save settings. It is useful for quick tests.

More: changes from June 12, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: June 11, 2026

2026-10-13T21:00:41+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Read Aloud (text-to-speech)

SumatraPDF can read text aloud using Windows text-to-speech. Read Aloud (CmdToggleReadAloud, command palette and a toolbar button) reads the selected text or the current page. Pause and Continue (CmdPauseReadAloud, CmdContinueReadAloud) control playback, and the toolbar button’s drop-down lets you pick a voice.

Citation and reference hover preview

Hover over a link inside the document, such as a [1] citation, a figure reference or a footnote mark, to see a small popup of what it points to: the bibliography entry, figure or footnote. You don’t have to leave the current page (#128, #4221).

More: changes from June 11, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF: Open PDFs inside .p7m files

2026-10-13T19:25:36+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Open PDFs inside .p7m files

SumatraPDF opens PDF documents wrapped in digitally signed .p7m files (#5618).

More: changes from May 21, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 23, 2026

2026-10-13T15:08:16+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Digital signature info in Document Properties

Document Properties shows the digital signatures in a PDF: who signed it, whether the certificate is trusted and whether the document is unchanged since signing. It also shows the signing time, reason and location. The sign command-line tool is also enabled (#5572).

Progress while opening archives

When a comic book archive is being opened, the loading message shows progress as each file inside the archive is extracted.

More: changes from April 23, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 14, 2026

2026-10-13T00:57:47+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Drag images out of documents

Drag an image from a PDF or other document and drop it into another application, such as a web app, an image editor or File Explorer.

Richer image properties

Document Properties for images and comic books shows the image’s path, file size and EXIF metadata (#5534, #5536). Selecting text with a pen or stylus works on Windows tablets (#5538).

More: changes from April 14, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 12, 2026

2026-10-12T19:42:54+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

PDF tools: compress, encrypt, delete and extract pages

New commands, in the command palette and a new Document submenu of the page’s right-click menu:

Compress PDF / Decompress PDF (CmdPdfCompress, CmdPdfDecompress)
Delete Pages From PDF (CmdPdfDeletePages)
Extract Pages From PDF (CmdPdfExtractPages)
Encrypt PDF (password protection with AES-256, CmdPdfEncrypt)
Decrypt PDF (removes the password, CmdPdfDecrypt)

Page ranges accept 8- as a shorthand for “page 8 to the end”.

The new Fullscreen advanced setting (ShowToolbar, ShowMenubar) shows the toolbar and menu bar in fullscreen mode. F8 / F9 toggle them while in fullscreen. The right-click menu in fullscreen also contains the full main menu (#1565).

Global screenshot hotkey

Set Screenshot Hotkey (CmdSetScreenshotHotkey, command palette) sets or removes a system-wide hotkey for taking screenshots (#5518).

Save PDF attachments

Saving file attachments from PDFs works again: right-click a file attachment and choose Save Attachment (#1455).

Images open shrunk to fit

The DefaultImageZoom setting moved to ImageUI.DefaultZoom. By default, images open shrunk to fit the window.

More: changes from April 12, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 11, 2026

2026-10-12T15:46:54+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Tab colors

Set Tab Color (CmdSetTabColor, on a tab’s right-click menu) gives a document’s tab a custom color (#2725).

The home page has a search box above the thumbnails that filters recently opened files by name, with the matching part highlighted. Ctrl + F focuses it, and Esc clears it.

When you close tabs with the mouse, the remaining tabs keep their size while the mouse is over the tab bar, so you can close many tabs quickly, like in Chrome (#601). Right-clicking highlights the page element (image, link, …) that the menu applies to. Ctrl + F no longer starts searching right away. Press Enter or F3 to search (#5312).

More: changes from April 11, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 10, 2026

2026-10-11T23:24:51+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Change Background Color

Change Background Color (CmdChangeBackgroundColor, command palette) opens a color picker to change the background color for the current file or for all files of the same type. It has swatches for saved custom colors (CustomColors). New settings EBookUI.BackgroundColor, ComicBookUI.BackgroundColor and ImageUI.BackgroundColor set the background for ebooks, comic books and images. All background color settings accept checkered for a transparency checkerboard.

The ToolbarText option for ExternalViewers adds a toolbar button that opens the document in that external viewer (#5313).

WOFF fonts and more print copies

Documents that embed WOFF fonts display correctly (#944). -print-settings allows up to 9999 copies (#5509). The Scrollbars setting moved from FixedPageUI to the top level.

More: changes from April 10, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF: Extract Text From Document works for DjVu

2026-10-11T19:42:02+02:00

This feature is available in the pre-release builds.

Extract Text From Document works for DjVu

The text extraction command (renamed to Extract Text From Document, CmdDocumentExtractText) works for DjVu files as well as PDF.

More on the changelog page for 2026-04-09. The full changelog has all the changes.

SumatraPDF new features: April 8, 2026

2026-10-10T00:00:00Z

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Password-protected comic books

Password-protected CBZ / CBR files can be opened (#95). The password dialog has a Show password checkbox.

Tips on the home page

The home page shows a random tip with clickable links and keyboard shortcuts. Click the tip to see another one. Turn tips off with the ShowTips setting (#5515).

Manga mode and outline for all formats

Toggle Manga Mode works for PDF and other document types, not only comic books (#5498). Show Document Bookmarks (previously Show PDF Outline) works for every format that has a table of contents.

Smaller behavior changes

ZoomIncrement can be as small as 1 (#4931).
Downloaded files are no longer marked as coming from the internet when opened, so Windows shows their previews.

More: changes from April 8, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 5, 2026

2026-10-09T19:26:05+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Extract Text From Document

New Extract Text From Document command (CmdDocumentExtractText) in the Ctrl + k command palette saves the text of a document’s pages to a .txt file.

Better comic book archive support (libarchive)

Comic book archives (.cbz, .cbr, .cb7, .cbt) are now read with libarchive, which adds support for more archive variants, including bzip2 compression. RAR archives are opened with libarchive first, falling back to unrar.dll.

DDE Open can reuse the current tab

The [Open] DDE command now honors its inCurrentTab flag: setting it to 1 opens the file in the current tab instead of a new one (#4079).

EPUB file list in Properties

Document Properties (Ctrl + D) for EPUB files now shows the list of files inside the book.

Own Explorer icons for CHM and DjVu

The installer registers distinct File Explorer icons for .chm and .djvu files, so they no longer look like PDFs.

More: changes from April 5, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 4, 2026

2026-10-09T14:45:03+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Bake PDF File

New Bake PDF File command (CmdPdfBake) in the Ctrl + k command palette turns interactive form fields and annotations into static page content and saves the result as a new PDF, which then opens.

Show PDF Outline

New Show PDF Outline command (CmdShowPdfOutline) in the command palette shows the document’s outline (table of contents) as text in a window.

Saving and restoring tab groups now has its own Tab Groups submenu (in the Favorites menu) with Save Tab Group and Restore Tab Group. Both are also in the tab right-click menu. There is also a window for managing saved groups (#4402).

Screenshots include open menus

Take Screenshot also captures open menus as separate windows you can pick.

The custom menu bar shown when tabs are in the title bar works more like a normal menu bar, and toggling the menu bar is more reliable (#5442, #549).

More: changes from April 4, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 3, 2026

2026-10-08T00:00:00Z

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Save and restore tab groups

You can save the current set of open tabs as a named group and restore it later with Save Tab Group (CmdTabGroupSave) and Restore Tab Group in the Ctrl + k command palette. Saved groups are stored in the TabGroups advanced setting (#4402).

Highlight matches in filtered Table of Contents

When you filter the Table of Contents / bookmarks tree, the matching text is highlighted in each entry.

More: changes from April 3, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 2, 2026

2026-10-07T19:02:44+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Scrollbars setting and Change Scrollbar dialog

The new Scrollbars advanced setting picks the scrollbar style: windows, smart, overlay or hidden. It replaces the HideScrollbars and UseOverlayScrollbar settings. The new Change Scrollbar command (CmdChangeScrollbar) opens a dialog to pick the mode.

Shrink To Fit zoom

New Shrink To Fit zoom mode (CmdZoomShrinkToFit): pages smaller than the window show at 100%, larger pages are fitted to the window. It is in the zoom menu and command palette, and works from the command line.

Search in Change Language dialog

The Change Language dialog has a search box at the top. Type to filter the list of languages.

A Show Menu menu item makes it easier to turn the menu bar back on (#5464).

No more “make default PDF reader” dialog

Removed the dialog that asked to make SumatraPDF the default PDF reader.

More: changes from April 2, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: April 1, 2026

2026-10-07T13:35:50+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Tab switching in most-recently-used order

The new TabsMru advanced setting makes Ctrl + Tab go through tabs in most-recently-used order.

More details in image and comic book properties

Document Properties (Ctrl + D) for image files now shows size, dimensions, DPI and EXIF metadata (#4265). For comic book files (CBZ, CBR, CB7, CBT) it lists the image files in the archive.

Image editor keyboard shortcuts

In the image crop/resize window, Esc switches back to save mode and Ctrl + C copies the image to the clipboard.

The border around the Table of Contents and bookmarks trees is gone.

The menu bar uses the font size from the UIFontSize setting.

More: changes from April 1, 2026 and the full changelog.

Sumatra File Manager: Refresh

2026-10-07T00:00:00Z

Sumatra File Manager is a file manager for Windows.

Refresh

F5 reloads the current folder and keeps the selection.

See this day in the changelog, the full changelog, or download Sumatra File Manager.

SumatraPDF new features: March 31, 2026

2026-10-06T21:14:28+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

In the custom menu bar (shown when tabs are in the title bar), arrow keys move between menus, like a standard Windows menu bar.

Faster, smoother fullscreen

Going into and out of fullscreen is faster and flickers less. Switching tabs also causes less repainting.

More: changes from March 31, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: March 30, 2026

2026-10-06T16:28:21+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

The new ShowMenubarWithTabs advanced setting controls whether the menu bar is shown when tabs are on. CmdToggleMenuBar updates it.

Edit screenshots before saving

Take Screenshot opens the captured image in the image save/crop/resize window, where you can crop, resize and pick a format before saving.

Overlay scrollbar arrows and theme look

The overlay scrollbar has filled triangle arrows. With non-default themes, the thick scrollbar is drawn opaque.

Easier tab closing on touch screens

The tab close button is easier to hit on touch screens (#5440).

More: changes from March 30, 2026 and the full changelog.

SumatraPDF new features: March 29, 2026

2026-10-06T13:17:46+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Crop and resize images

When you view an image file, Crop Image (CmdCropImage) and Resize Image (CmdResizeImage) open an editing window. Drag to crop (arrow keys move an edge by 1 pixel) or resize, then save to a new file. The right-click menu has an Image submenu (Copy To Clipboard, Save, Crop, Resize), which also works for images inside PDFs and other documents.

Save images as PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF or WebP

The image save window has a format drop-down: PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, and WebP when Windows has a WebP encoder installed (it’s only offered if the encoder is found).

Paste image from clipboard

Ctrl + V pastes an image from the clipboard: it’s saved as a PNG in the Downloads folder and opened.

Drag & drop images from a browser

Drag an image from a web browser onto the SumatraPDF window. It’s downloaded to the Downloads folder and opened.

Show Errors for problematic PDFs

If MuPDF reported warnings or errors while loading a PDF, the right-click menu has Show Errors to see them.

Deleting a file cleans up history

CmdDeleteFile also removes the file from history and deletes its home page thumbnail.

Tab and annotation visual tweaks

The tab close button has a round hover background. The selected annotation is marked in blue instead of gray, so it’s easier to see.

More: changes from March 29, 2026 and the full changelog.

Sumatra File Manager: Open a folder or file from the command line

2026-10-06T00:00:00Z

Sumatra File Manager is a file manager for Windows.

Open a folder or file from the command line

SumatraFileManager.exe <folder> opens that folder. Given a file, it opens the file’s folder with the file selected.

See this day’s changes, the full changelog, or download Sumatra File Manager.

SumatraPDF new features: March 28, 2026

2026-10-05T21:39:46+02:00

New in the SumatraPDF pre-release builds:

Red dot for unsaved changes

A tab with unsaved annotation changes shows a red dot after its title. This replaces the “You have unsaved annotations” message in the toolbar.

When tabs are in the title bar, the menu bar (File, View, …) can now be shown with them: it sits in the title bar row, with the tabs below. Before, showing the menu turned off tabs in the title bar.

Properties window sizes to fit

The Document Properties window sizes itself to its content. Font info loads in the background, so the window opens faster.

More: changes from March 28, 2026 and the full changelog.

Krzysztof Kowalczyk blog

SumatraPDF new features: June 16, 2026

Many new printing options

Smarter command-line printing

Convert Image to PDF

Triple-click selects a line

Remove button on Frequently Read thumbnails

Favorites improvements

New DDE commands and forced on/off toggles

Smaller improvements

SumatraPDF new features: June 15, 2026

JPEG XL images

Password on the command line

sumatrapdf-tool.exe for command-line tools

Select annotation and form text; select by word while dragging

“Rendering page N…” for slow pages

SumatraPDF new features: June 14, 2026

Table of contents and favorites modes in the command palette

More -print-settings options

Zoom and link tooltip tweaks

SumatraPDF new features: June 13, 2026

Remove Deleted Files From History

Reuse instance respects virtual desktops

Literal % in external viewer command lines

SumatraPDF new features: June 12, 2026

Back / Forward toolbar buttons

Toggle citation hover preview

View mode hints and sidebar fonts

-for-testing command-line flag

SumatraPDF new features: June 11, 2026

Read Aloud (text-to-speech)

Citation and reference hover preview

SumatraPDF: Open PDFs inside .p7m files

Open PDFs inside .p7m files

SumatraPDF new features: April 23, 2026

Digital signature info in Document Properties

Progress while opening archives

SumatraPDF new features: April 14, 2026

Drag images out of documents

Richer image properties

SumatraPDF new features: April 12, 2026

PDF tools: compress, encrypt, delete and extract pages

Toolbar and menu in fullscreen

Global screenshot hotkey

Save PDF attachments

Images open shrunk to fit

SumatraPDF new features: April 11, 2026

Tab colors

Search box on the home page

Chrome-like tab closing, context menu highlight, find tweak

SumatraPDF new features: April 10, 2026

Change Background Color

External viewers as toolbar buttons

WOFF fonts and more print copies

SumatraPDF: Extract Text From Document works for DjVu

Extract Text From Document works for DjVu

SumatraPDF new features: April 8, 2026

Password-protected comic books

Tips on the home page

Manga mode and outline for all formats

Smaller behavior changes

SumatraPDF new features: April 5, 2026

Extract Text From Document

Better comic book archive support (libarchive)

DDE Open can reuse the current tab

EPUB file list in Properties

Own Explorer icons for CHM and DjVu

SumatraPDF new features: April 4, 2026

Bake PDF File

Show PDF Outline

Tab Groups menu

Screenshots include open menus

Menu bar improvements with tabs

SumatraPDF new features: April 3, 2026

Save and restore tab groups

Highlight matches in filtered Table of Contents

SumatraPDF new features: April 2, 2026

Scrollbars setting and Change Scrollbar dialog

Shrink To Fit zoom

Search in Change Language dialog