I got tired of switching apps to work with PDFs, so I built a VS Code extension

Mantas — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 21:29:59 +0000

VS Code is where I do most of my work, but whenever I needed to properly review a PDF, I kept switching to another app just to highlight a passage, leave a comment, or sign a document.

I wanted to do all of that without breaking my workflow, especially when reading research papers or working with technical documents.

So I built PDF Viewer & Editor:

It lets you annotate PDFs directly in VS Code: highlight and underline text, leave comments, write rich-text notes with LaTeX maths, draw shapes, fill forms, and sign documents. It also integrates with GitHub Copilot, so you can ask it to explain or summarize a passage, or use @pdf directly in Copilot Chat.

The fun part wasn't just adding annotation tools - it was making sure the saved edits would still work outside VS Code. Annotations are saved using standard PDF annotations, so your edited documents can still be opened in Acrobat, Preview, and browsers.

You can also rotate, reorder, and insert pages, print, and undo changes.

If you've ever had to jump between your editor and a PDF app while reviewing papers or filling out documents, I'd love to know if this is something you'd use :)

I got annoyed with VS Code's Outline, so I fixed it

Mantas — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 21:45:52 +0000

VS Code's Outline is great for classes and methods, but it ignores things like folding regions (#region) and comment banners.

I found a couple of extensions that solve this, but they all create a second Outline panel. I really just wanted the built-in one to understand my sections.

So I built Outline Sections:

It adds comment sections directly into the existing Outline, works with TypeScript, Python, C/C++, Rust, and also supports custom regex for different comment styles.

The fun part wasn't parsing comments (AI agents can do this) - it was extending the symbols produced by the existing language analysers without replacing them. These analysers use language clients (LCs) which are not publicly exposed so it's definitely quite a challenge reaching them, let alone intercepting with custom rules.

Nevertheless, if you've ever organised code with comment sections, I'd love to know if this would be something you'd use :)

DEV Community: Mantas

I got tired of switching apps to work with PDFs, so I built a VS Code extension

I got annoyed with VS Code's Outline, so I fixed it