Starlight PDF has just been released. It’s a new PDF annotation plugin for Obsidian, focused on a fast, precise, and smooth experience for pen and keyboard users.
What Starlight PDF focuses on
Finely tuned pen and keyboard experience for frustration-free studying and note-taking
Performance-first design - stays responsive even with hundreds of pen strokes and many pages
PDF-native and future-proof - annotations are written directly into the PDF annotation layer, no proprietary formats, no lock-in
Fully offline & privacy-respecting - no accounts, no servers, no tracking; a one-time purchase means you own it forever
Neatly integrated into Obsidian - quickly switch between the built-in PDF viewer and Starlight PDF; great for academic papers, exercise sheets, and long-term PKM
Annotation tools
- Select & lasso tools
- Pen with automatic line smoothing
- Stroke-by-stroke eraser
- Text-aware highlighter (snaps to PDF text)
- Keyboard-optimized text annotation tool
- (Coming soon) Image tool
- (Coming soon) Shape tool (rectangles, triangles, circles)
Pricing
To support continued development, Starlight PDF requires a one-time purchase of £15.
There are no subscriptions - you buy it once and keep using it forever.
You can also try the plugin without a license to explore the tools and workflow. Saving annotations is disabled in the unlicensed version.
More to come
More annotation tools are planned, and a standalone version of Starlight PDF is also on the roadmap to further increase portability and digital freedom.
Starlight PDF is available at
https://starlight.by-mika.dev/
Happy to answer questions or hear feedback.