SIOYEK(1)

💖 NAME 💖

This is the SIOYEK(1) manual page, bestie — User Commands, section 1 — and sioyek is a PDF viewer designed for reading research papers and technical books. That's the whole vibe. 🦋

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

sioyek [OPTIONS] [FILENAME]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

With no arguments, it opens the most recent document by default. No thoughts, just your last PDF. If none exists and should_load_tutorial_when_no_other_file is set in a preference file (see below), then it opens a tutorial PDF. 🎀

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -v, --version — Displays version information 👑
• --instance-name — Select a specific sioyek instance by name.
• --new-window — Open the file in a new window but within the same sioyek instance.
• --reuse-window — Force sioyek to reuse the current window even when should_launch_new_window is set.
• --page PAGE — Which page to open.
• --inverse-search COMMAND — The command to execute when performing inverse search. In COMMAND, %1 is filled with the file name and %2 is filled with the line number. Yes, those placeholders are doing the absolute most, and we love them.
• --forward-search-file FILE — Perform forward search on file FILE; must also include --forward-search-line to specify the line.
• --forward-search-line LINE — Perform forward search on line LINE; must also include --forward-search-file to specify the file.
• --forward-search-column COLUMN — Perform forward search on column COLUMN; must also include --forward-search-file to specify the file.
• --zoom ZOOM — Set zoom level to ZOOM.
• --xloc XLOC — Set x position within page to XLOC.
• --yloc YLOC — Set y position within page to YLOC.
• --shared-database-path PATH — Specify which file to use for shared data (bookmarks, highlights, etc.).
• -h, --help — Displays help on commandline options.
• --help-all — Displays help including Qt specific options. 🌈

🌸 FILES 🌸

• /etc/sioyek/keys.config — Default key bindings
• /etc/sioyek/prefs.config — Default preferences
• /usr/share/sioyek/shaders — Default shader files
• /usr/share/sioyek/tutorial.pdf — sioyek tutorial PDF
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sioyek/keys_user.config — User key bindings
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sioyek/prefs_user.config — User preferences

🧚 CONFIGURATION 🧚

Sioyek supports many preferences that can be set in a file as described above. Each preference is a token, some whitespace, and a value. A value can be a:

• integer
• boolean: integer which is exactly either 0 or 1
• float: period separated decimal value
• string: sequence of characters, without quotes
• fvec[n]: space separated list of n floats
• ivec[n]: space separated list of n integers
• color_3: space separated list of 3 floats or integers between 0 and 1, representing RGB values.
• color_4: space separated list of 4 floats or integers between 0 and 1. The first three are RGB values, and the last one is opacity.

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• text_highlight_color color_3 — Highlight color when text is selected using mouse. 🖍️
• vertical_line_color color_4 — Color of the highlight bar when right click is pressed (to bring up the reading guide). Alias preference: visual_mark_color.
• search_highlight_color color_3 — Highlight color when text is a search match.
• link_highlight_color color_3 — Highlight color for PDF links.

note that highlight is off by default and can only be seen by performing a toggle_highlight command. See keys.config for more details.

• synctex_highlight_color color_3 — Highlight color for synctex forward search highlights.
• background_color color_3 — Background color.
• dark_mode_background_color color_3 — Background color in dark mode.
• dark_mode_contrast float — Contrast in dark mode. Higher values render the PDF with dimmer text.
• default_dark_mode boolean — Start in dark mode if 1, light mode if 0.
• item_list_prefix string — Text to prefix every bookmark in bookmark lists.
• inverse_search_command string — The command to use when trying to do inverse search into a LaTeX document. Uncomment and provide your own command. %1 expands to the name of the file and %2 expands to the line number.
• zoom_inc_factor float — The factor by which we increase/decrease zoom when performing zoom_in or zoom_out.
• vertical_move_amount float — How many (screen) inches we move vertically/horizontally when performing move_up/down commands.
• horizontal_move_amount float — How many (screen) inches we move vertically/horizontally when performing move_left/right commands.
• move_screen_ratio float — How many inches we move vertically/horizontally when performing move_left/right commands.
• flat_toc boolean — If 0, Table of Contents is shown in a hierarchical tree, otherwise it is a flat list (can improve performance for extremely large table of contents).
• should_use_multiple_monitors boolean — If it is 1, when launching the application if we detect multiple monitors, we automatically launch the helper window in second monitor.
• should_load_tutorial_when_no_other_file boolean — If the last opened document is empty, load the tutorial pdf instead..
• should_launch_new_instance boolean — If it is 0, then we use the previous instance of sioyek when launching a new file. otherwise a new instance is launched every time we open a new file.
• should_launch_new_window boolean — Open the file in a new window but within the same sioyek instance.
• should_draw_unrendered_pages boolean — If set, we display a checkerboard pattern for unrendered pages (by default we display nothing).
• check_for_updates_on_startup boolean — If set, shows a notification on startup if a new version of sioyek is available.
• sort_bookmarks_by_location boolean — If set, we sort the bookmarks by their location instead of their creation time.
• shared_database_path string — Path to shared.db database file. If not set, we use the default path. you can set this to be a file in a synced folder (e.g. dropbox folder) to automatically sync sioyek across multiple computers.

On GNU/Linux, this refers to ~/.local/share/sioyek/shared.db.

• hover_overview boolean — Displays an overview of destination when hovering over a link with mouse (no need to right click).
• visual_mark_next_page_fraction float — When moving to the next line using visual marker, this setting specifies the distance of the market to the top of the screen in fractions of screen size.
• visual_mark_next_page_threshold float — When moving to the next line using visual marker, this setting determines at which point we move the screen.
• ui_font string — Font to use for user interface (file browser, bookmarks, etc.).
• font_size integer — Font size
• middle_click_search_engine string — Search engine to use for middle click lookup. This value should be a string corresponding to the letters, *, in another string preference which specifies the url, search_url_*.

For example:

• search_url_g https://www.duckduckgo.com/search?q=
• middle_click_search_engine g

Will use the duckduckgo address for middle click search. 🦆

• shift_middle_click_search_engine string — Search engine to use for shift middle click lookup. Value is analogous to middle_click_search_engine.
• startup_commands string — Semicolon separated list of commands to run on startup.
• status_bar_font_size integer — Font size for text in the status bar.
• custom_background_color color_3 — Background color to use when executing the command toggle_custom_color.
• custom_text_color color_3 — Text color to use when executing the command toggle_custom_color.
• rerender_overview boolean — If 0, we use the previous renders for overview window which may cause it to be blurry if it is 1, we rerender with the proper resolution for overview window which looks better but may increase power consumption.
• wheel_zoom_on_cursor boolean — Normally mouse wheel zooms in on the middle of the screen, but if this is set to 1, we zoom in on the cursor.
• linear_filter boolean — Apply linear texture filtering by passing GL_LINEAR to glTexParameteri. This means that for a pixture being textured, we use the weighted average of the four texture elements closest to its center.
• display_resolution_scale float — Resolution multiplier for PDF viewer.
• status_bar_color color_3 — Color of the status bar background.
• status_bar_text_color color_3 — Color of the status bar text.
• main_window_size ivec[2] — Default size (in width and height) of the main window when a helper window is opened. You can copy the value of this config using the copy_window_size_config command.

If this is not set, then we use the full size of the first screen if there are multiple monitors, otherwise we use half of the width of the screen and the whole height -- a vertical split in half.

• main_window_move ivec[2] — Location to snap the main window to in x and y co-ordinates when the helper window is opened.

If not set, use (0, 0), top left of the first screen.

• helper_window_size ivec[2] — Default size (in width and height) of the helper window when it is opened.

If not set, use the full size of the second screen if there are multiple monitors, otherwise use half of the width of the first screen and the whole height.

• helper_window_move ivec[2] — Location to snap the helper window to in x and y co-ordinates when the helper window is opened.

If not set, then use (first screen width/2, 0) if there is only one monitor, and (second screen width, 0) if there are two.

• touchpad_sensitivity float — Touchpad sensitivity.
• page_separator_width float — Width of the page separator.
• page_separator_color color_3 — Color of the page separator.
• single_main_window_size ivec[2] — Default size of the main window when the helper window has been closed.

If not set, uses the size of the whole screen.

• single_main_window_move ivec[2] — where the main window snaps to once the helper window dips 💅 if you don't set it, it just chills at (0, 0).
• fit_page_to_width_ratio float — the ratio of the page width that the fit_to_page_width_ratio command actually uses. a value of 1 means the page eats the whole window width, main character behaviour honestly.
• collapsed_toc boolean — if set, we start out with the table of contents entries collapsed 🙈 (yes, the toc comes folded like fresh laundry).
• ruler_mode boolean — if set, we highlight the current line in visual_scroll_mode by masking above and below the current line ✨ if it's not set, we only mask below the line. lowkey different vibes.
• ruler_padding float — the ruler padding between the edges of the top and bottom of the text and the ruler 📏
• ruler_x_padding float — the ruler padding between the edges of the left and right of the text and the ruler 📐
• text_summary_url string — the text summary url for fastread 🦋 fastread mode (turned on with the command toggle_fastread) by default queries a url for information about which characters of each word on the page to highlight. an implementation of such a server based on a language model is available here: https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek/blob/main/scripts/summary_highlight_server.py. and by default, both this script and sioyek bind to localhost:5000 — they're matching, it's giving soulmate energy 🫶
• text_summary_should_refine boolean — language model option for the fastread server program. if 1, then prevent highlights in the middle of words by always highlighting starting from the beginning of the word until the first mispredicted character. no more half-highlighted chaos 😌
• text_summary_should_fill boolean — language model option for the fastread server program. if 1, then highlight the entire word when over 50% of it is highlighted. commit to the bit bestie 💖
• text_summary_context_size integer — context size to use on the fastread server. number of characters in context for next character prediction 🔮
• use_heuristic_if_text_summary_not_available boolean — use the heuristic if the text summary url does not return highlights. the heuristic involves choosing ceiling(length*0.3) characters of every word to emphasize 🎀
• papers_folder_path string — a directory which sioyek watches for new papers 👀 if a new paper is added to this directory while we are creating a portal from another document, this new document will automatically be used as the destination of the portal. literally portal magic ✨
• enable_experimental_features boolean — enable possibly unstable experimental features 💀 you've been warned, it's giving chaos but make it fun.
• create_table_of_contents_if_not_exists boolean — automatically create a table of contents for the document if it doesn't already have one 🧚
• max_created_toc_size integer — limits the maximum size of created table of contents. gotta cap it somewhere bestie 🔥
• force_custom_line_algorithm boolean — use a custom algorithm based on pixmaps to compute rectangles around the lines of the document 🖼️
• overview_size fvec[2] — size, width and height, of the overview window. the overview window is triggered by right clicking on an internal link, or hovering if hover_overview is set to 1 🌸
• overview_offset fvec[2] — offset of the overview window as floats from the center of the page. floating-free-floating 🦋
• ignore_whitespace_in_presentation_mode boolean — always use fit_to_page_smart (ignoring whitespace) in presentation view 👑
• exact_highlight_select boolean — if set to 0, then in word select mode, select the whole word even if the cursor is only partially on the word. if set to 1, then select the word only if the range of the cursor's selection fully includes the word ✂️ pick your fighter.
• show_doc_path boolean — if set to 0, then only show the filename in the dialog to choose to open a previous doc (open_prev_doc). if 1, then show the entire file path 🗂️
• fastread_opacity float — opacity of the dimmed portion of words in fastread mode 🌫️
• highlight_color_* color_3 — color of the highlight color bound to symbol * (should be one character) 🎨
• should_warn_about_user_key_override boolean — if set to 0, then don't warn the user about key definition overrides when the two definitions are in different files. if set to 1, then always warn the user when keys are overridden ⚠️
• single_click_selects_words boolean — if set to 0, then single clicks select words and double clicks allow selection of arbitrary ranges of characters. if set to 1, then double clicks select words and single clicks allow selection of arbitrary ranges of characters 🖱️ it flips the whole thing, no cap.
• highlight_middle_click boolean — if set to 1, then middle clicks add a highlight with select_highlight_type when a selection is active and no preview is open. if set to 0, a smart jump is always attempted 🖲️
• super_fast_search boolean — if set to 0, search is performed by the mupdf backend. if set to 1, a super fast search index is used instead. this leads to a slight increase in memory 🔥 speed vs ram, the eternal struggle.
• case_sensitive_search boolean — if set to 1, search and regex_search are case-sensitive. if set to 0, search and regex search are case-insensitive 🔤
• incremental_search boolean — if set to 1, jump to the first result as soon as you start typing. if set to 0, wait until enter is pressed ⌨️

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🐛 BUGS 🐛

okay so if you find a bug in sioyek please report it at https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek/issues — do it, the devs wanna know, and honestly reporting bugs is such a slay move 💖

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that's the whole page bestie, you made it to the end, go forth and read pdfs with main character energy 👑 this was SIOYEK(1) from the SIOYEK source/version, dated 2022-06-18 — love that for us 🌈💅