Alpha RyDF is in early development — actively testing and looking for feedback. Report a bug or request a feature →
macOS PDF tool · Early alpha

Read, mark up
and print big
PDFs. Fast.

RyDF is a macOS PDF viewer, markup and print app built for large, complex drawings. It stays fluid on files that bog other viewers down — with a full annotation toolset, to-scale measuring, OCR for scans, and a real print pipeline.

Free during the alpha · Your markups save right into the PDF.
site-plan.pdf details.pdf
Opens 100+ MB drawings without the spinner Full markup toolset Measure to scale OCR for scans Prints to any size
What it does

A viewer that keeps up — and does the work.

RyDF is one focused app that reads big PDFs smoothly, lets you mark them up like a pro reviewer, measures right off the drawing, and prints exactly what you need.

View

A tiled, virtualized engine keeps huge multi-hundred-page and CAD-size PDFs fluid — smooth scroll, instant zoom, and pages kept warm in RAM.

Mark up

Clouds, shapes, text, callouts, dimensions, ink, highlighter, stamps and signatures — a complete Design-Review-style annotation set.

Measure

Calibrate a page's scale once, then read true distances and areas straight off the drawing — with snap-to-geometry for exact points.

Print

A real print pipeline — pick paper size, scale to fit, print selected pages, and get a faithful preview before anything hits paper.

How it works

Open. Mark up. It's in the PDF.

Drop in a drawing, review it with the full toolset, and save — your markups go straight into the PDF file, so there's nothing extra to keep track of. Or take it further with measuring, OCR and printing.

Review a drawing

Everyday

The classic markup loop — comment, cloud, and hand it back.

  1. Open the PDF — even a big one opens straight to page 1 while the rest streams in.
  2. Mark it up — clouds, callouts, text, highlights, stamps, your signature.
  3. Save — the markups are written into the PDF itself, editable again next time you open it here.

Take off a drawing

To scale

Turn a scaled drawing into real numbers, then print what you need.

  1. Calibrate the scale — draw over a known dimension, type the real length; snap to the drawing's own lines for exactness.
  2. Measure — distances and areas read out in your units, per page.
  3. Print — choose paper size and scale, print selected pages, preview first.
What's inside

Everything you need to review a drawing.

Built for people who live in technical PDFs all day — fast where it counts, thorough where it matters, and quiet the rest of the time.

Handles huge PDFs

A priority-scheduled, tiled render engine with a RAM page cache — big CAD sets and hundred-page documents stay smooth to scroll and zoom.

Full markup toolset

Rectangles, ellipses, revision clouds, lines, arrows, polylines, ink, highlighter, text boxes, callouts and notes — with color, fill, stroke and opacity.

Stamps & signatures

Drop reusable stamps with repositionable text, and sign by typing your name in a cursive font or importing an image with the background removed.

Measure to scale

Per-page scale calibration (draw a known length, type its real value), snap-to-geometry for exact endpoints, and a quick-measure tape that leaves nothing behind.

OCR for scans

Recognize text on scanned or image-only pages with on-device Apple Vision — an invisible, searchable text layer is baked in, so scans become selectable and searchable.

Markups live in the PDF

Save writes your markups into the PDF file itself — no stray sidecar, one file to keep or send, and still fully editable when you reopen it in RyDF.

Organize pages

Rotate, delete, extract, insert and reorder pages — inline in the sidebar or in a full grid view, drag-and-drop like Acrobat's Organize Pages.

Real print pipeline

Full paper-size table, scale-to-fit, print the whole document or just the pages you selected, and a true-to-output preview before you commit.

Multi-document tabs

Keep several drawings open at once and flip between them instantly — each tab holds its own place, zoom and markups.

Fast search

Search the whole document with paged results and adjustable on-page highlights — and it finds text you added with OCR, too.

Units, math & theme

Work in mm, inches or points; type fractions and arithmetic into any dimension field (1/8", .25"−1/8"); light or dark, following your system.

Keeps itself current

Checks its GitHub releases for new versions, shows what changed, and downloads the update — on a schedule you choose or only when you ask.

Measure to scale

Read real distances straight off the drawing.

Calibrate a page once — draw across something you know the length of, type the real value, and optionally snap to the drawing's own line endpoints for a pixel-exact reference. From then on every measurement on that page reads out in your units. Scale is remembered per page, so a set with different sheet scales just works.

floor-plan.pdf — Calibrate scale

The blue line is snapped to two wall corners; you type the known length and RyDF sets the page scale.

Get the alpha

Try RyDF and tell us what breaks.

It's free while it's in alpha, and under active development. Grab the latest build, open your gnarliest PDF, and send the bugs and requests our way — feedback shapes what comes next.

macOS 11+ · Free during the alpha
New here? Read the quick start or the FAQ.