PDFView

Native macOS PDF reader built with SwiftUI and PDFKit, with a simple visual-signature workflow.

Scope

• PDF viewing via Apple PDFKit
• Visual signature stamp placement and flattened export
• Local-only signature profile storage

Non-goals

• Certificate-based digital signatures (PKI)
• Cloud sync or remote signing services

Requirements

• macOS 26.2+
• Swift 6.2+
• Xcode Command Line Tools

Build

# Debug build
swift build

# Release app bundle
./build_app.sh

The bundle is created at PDFView.app.

Quality Checks

swift build
swift build -Xswiftc -strict-concurrency=complete
./build_app.sh debug

Test suites are included under /Users/minimac/projects/pdfview/Tests/PDFViewAppTests for XCTest/Swift-Testing capable toolchains.

Usage

1. Open a PDF (double-click or File > Open).
2. Click the signature toolbar button to start signing.
3. Create or edit your signature profile (Draw / Type / Import).
4. Place signatures in field mode or free placement mode.
5. Save a signed copy.

Note: Signing is a visual signature stamp and not a certificate-based digital signature.

Architecture

• DocumentGroup app model (Sources/PDFViewApp/PDFViewApp.swift)
• FileDocument PDF model (Sources/PDFViewApp/PDFViewerDocument.swift)
• SwiftUI + PDFKit bridge (Sources/Views/PDFKitView.swift)
• Signature setup and placement UX (Sources/Views/PDFContentView.swift, Sources/Views/SignatureSetupSheet.swift)

Distribution

Local development

./build_app.sh

Default is ad-hoc signing for local use.

Developer ID + notarization

SIGNING_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" ./build_app.sh

NOTARIZE=true \
NOTARY_PROFILE="your-notary-profile" \
SIGNING_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" \
./build_app.sh

The script verifies signatures with:

• codesign --verify --strict --verbose=2 PDFView.app
• spctl -a -vv --type execute PDFView.app (Developer ID builds)

Set as default PDF app

Finder

1. Right-click any PDF file
2. Choose Get Info
3. Under Open with, select PDFView
4. Click Change All

Command line

brew install duti
duti -s com.bigmac.pdfview com.adobe.pdf all

Security notes

• App Sandbox is enabled in distribution entitlements.
• File access is limited to user-selected files/folders for read/write.
• Signed-copy export is flattened from an immutable baseline document plus in-session placements.

References

• SwiftUI DocumentGroup
• SwiftUI FileDocument
• PDFKit
• App Sandbox
• Notarizing macOS software

License

MIT. See LICENSE.