DocLatch is a lightweight open-source desktop PDF viewer for Windows and Linux. Open several documents in tabs, compare them side by side in split view, and protect your files with AES-256 password encryption. Everything runs entirely on your own computer, with no internet connection required and no telemetry of any kind.
- Multi-document tabs: open several PDFs at once in separate tabs, each keeping its own current page, zoom level and password.
- Split view: show two open documents side by side in the same window to compare them without switching tabs.
- AES-256 password protection: add or remove encryption from your documents in a couple of clicks, from the Protection menu. The original file is never modified.
- Smooth zoom and scrolling: navigate pages with smooth zooming: a loading indicator appears while the view is recalculated, never a blurry or clipped page.
- Recent documents: quickly find recently opened files from the home screen.
- Fully offline: no internet connection is needed for any feature. Nothing is ever uploaded to a server.
- Light and dark theme: switch between themes at any time from the settings.
- Text size: choose between three interface text sizes (small, medium, large) from the settings.
- Multilingual: interface available in Italian, English, French and German.
DocLatch collects no data, sends no telemetry and requires no internet connection, ever.
Opening, browsing, zooming and password-protecting documents all happen entirely on your own machine. There is no analytics, no crash reporting, no usage tracking and no cloud sync.
Download the installer for your platform from the Releases section:
| Platform | File |
|---|---|
| Windows | DocLatch_x.x.x_windows_x64.exe |
| Linux | DocLatch_x.x.x_linux_x64_portable.AppImage |
Windows SmartScreen notice: the installer is not yet signed with a paid certificate, so SmartScreen may show a warning on first launch. Choose "More info" → "Run anyway" to proceed.
The Linux release is a self-contained portable binary that runs on any distribution without installation:
chmod +x DocLatch_x.x.x_linux_x64_portable.AppImage
./DocLatch_x.x.x_linux_x64_portable.AppImage- Handles PDF files only (no exporting to other formats yet).
- It's a viewer: it doesn't yet support editing page content (text/images) or reordering pages.
Planned future work includes page management and reordering, document conversion to other formats, document signing (image/text overlay), filling existing form fields (AcroForm).
All technical information (stack, project structure, development commands, testing and the release process) is in DEVELOPMENT.md.