Dark mode in 30 PDF readers, compared
Most readers advertise a dark mode. Far fewer change the document rather than the toolbar around it, and fewer still leave your photographs alone while doing it. Checked against vendor documentation, release notes and issue trackers on 26 August 2026.
9 of 30
never touch the document at all
Their dark mode restyles the app and leaves the page exactly as it was.
7
invert your photographs
Of those that do change the page, this many take the images with it.
0 of 30
can save a dark copy
Not one. Every dark mode here is a viewing setting, so the file is bright again anywhere else you open it.
That last figure is the one worth sitting with. Every dark mode in this table is something your reader does while you look at the page. Send the file to a colleague, open it on a tablet, or print it, and it is white again, because none of them alter the document. That is not a criticism of any one of them — it is what a viewing setting is.
Desktop
| Reader | Dark mode changes | Photographs | Scanned pages | Saves a dark file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Acrobat ReaderWindows, macOSPreferences → Accessibility → Replace Document Colors | The document | Kept | No effect | No |
| Apple PreviewmacOS 26+View → Use Dark Appearance for PDF | The document | Kept | Unverified | No |
| Foxit PDF ReaderWindows, macOSView → Night Mode, or Preferences → Accessibility | The document | Kept | Unverified | No |
| PDF-XChange EditorWindowsPreferences → Accessibility → Override Document Colors | The document | Kept | No effect | No |
| Sumatra PDFWindowsDocumentColorsFollowTheme = smart | legacy | off | The document | Depends on mode | Unverified | No |
| OkularLinux, KDEConfigure Okular → Accessibility → Change colors | The document | Depends on mode | Unverified | No |
| Evince / PapersLinux, GNOMENight Mode | The document | Unverified | Unverified | No |
- Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Replaces text and line-art colours, so photographs are left alone. Does nothing whatsoever to a scanned page, because there is no text or vector art to recolour — this is the case that fills Adobe’s forums. Source
- Apple Preview.
- Added in macOS 26 (September 2025) and genuinely good: it recolours text and graphics while leaving images largely alone. Earlier versions of macOS have no equivalent in Preview at all. Source
- Foxit PDF Reader.
- The accessibility route recolours background and text while embedded graphics keep their appearance. Users report the toolbars stay light even with Night Mode on. Scanned-page behaviour is not documented.
- PDF-XChange Editor.
- Pictures are explicitly unaffected. On scans it does nothing, confirmed bluntly by PDF-XChange staff on their own forum: the feature does not process images. Source
- Sumatra PDF.
- The only reader here that lets you choose. In smart mode the docs say photographs and other images stay as they are in the file; legacy mode recolours them too. Set in the advanced settings file, not a menu. Source
- Okular.
- Offers several modes, from a blunt Invert Colors to gentler Invert Lightness and Invert Luma options that hold hue better. Which you pick decides what happens to your figures. Source
- Evince / Papers.
- GNOME is replacing Evince with a rewrite called Papers, and neither documents what its night mode does to images. We could not verify it either way, so this row stays open rather than guessed.
Browser
| Reader | Dark mode changes | Photographs | Scanned pages | Saves a dark file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google ChromeAll | Nothing | — | — | No |
| Mozilla FirefoxAllabout:config → pdfjs.forcePageColors | The document | Inverted | Unverified | No |
| Microsoft EdgeWindows, macOS | Nothing | — | — | No |
- Google Chrome.
- No dark mode for PDFs. Chrome’s dark theme covers its own interface, and extensions cannot reach the built-in viewer because it is not a web page. The experimental Auto Dark Mode flag does affect PDFs, badly — it works on rendered pixels and was built for websites.
- Mozilla Firefox.
- Buried in about:config, and pdf.js’s own issue tracker carries open reports of it recolouring embedded images unintentionally. The friendlier setting that existed before was removed in Firefox 121 for being partially broken. Source
- Microsoft Edge.
- Microsoft state it directly: the dark theme turns websites dark and does not turn PDFs dark. Reading view offers page themes, but that is reflowed extracted text rather than the document. Source
Mobile & tablet
| Reader | Dark mode changes | Photographs | Scanned pages | Saves a dark file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Acrobat Reader (mobile)iOS, AndroidView settings → Night Mode | The document | Kept | Unverified | No |
| Apple BooksiOS, macOS | Nothing | — | — | No |
| Apple Files / Quick LookiOS, macOS | Interface only | — | — | No |
| XodoiOS, Android, Windows, webNight mode, and a separate Invert Colors | The document | Inverted | Inverted | No |
| PDF ExpertiOS, macOSNight and Sepia reading themes | The document | Unverified | Unverified | No |
| Documents by ReaddleiOSDay / Sepia / Night themes | The document | Unverified | Unverified | No |
| Google Drive viewerAndroid, web | Interface only | — | — | No |
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (mobile).
- The reverse split from most apps: Adobe staff confirm Night Mode inverts the document only and deliberately leaves the toolbars light. Users report photographs are excluded from the inversion. Behaviour on scans is contested across threads. Source
- Apple Books.
- Books has reading themes for ebooks and offers none at all when a PDF is open — the theme controls simply do not appear.
- Apple Files / Quick Look.
- Follows the system appearance for its own chrome and leaves the page alone. Preview’s new dark toggle has not reached Quick Look.
- Xodo.
- Xodo’s own documentation describes it as reversing the brightness of everything, which is precisely the behaviour that turns photographs into negatives. Source
- PDF Expert.
- Readdle document how to switch the theme on but not what it does to images. A widely repeated claim that it preserves photographs traces to third-party blogs rather than Readdle, so we have left it unverified.
- Documents by Readdle.
- Readdle are unusually explicit that nothing is written to your file: the app creates a temporary view of it. That is the clearest statement of the display-only rule any vendor here makes. Source
- Google Drive viewer.
- Google say it plainly in their own help: dark mode changes the Drive interface, and PDFs may use their own colours. Source
E-ink
| Reader | Dark mode changes | Photographs | Scanned pages | Saves a dark file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kindle (mono e-ink)Paperwhite, Scribe, basic KindleSettings → Screen & Brightness → Appearance | The document | Inverted | Unverified | No |
| KoboSage, Libra 2, Clara, ElipsaDark mode (supported models only) | The document | Kept | Unverified | No |
| reMarkablereMarkable tablets | Nothing | — | — | No |
| Onyx BooxBoox (Android) | Unverified | Unverified | Unverified | No |
- Kindle (mono e-ink).
- Amazon say dark mode inverts text, image and page colour together — and then warn that if a PDF does not render properly you should turn the feature off for it. Colour Kindles have no dark mode at all yet.
- Kobo.
- Kobo state flatly that images are not colour inverted, which puts them ahead of Kindle here. Only some models support it, and their documentation does not separate PDFs from ebooks. Source
- reMarkable.
- No dark or invert mode of any kind. The reading light and contrast filter are different features solving a different problem, and are often mistaken for one.
- Onyx Boox.
- The most fragmented case here. Android’s own dark theme covers chrome only, Android colour inversion inverts everything including images, and Boox’s NeoReader is widely reported not to offer night mode for PDFs specifically. We could not find current vendor documentation either way.
Research & notes
| Reader | Dark mode changes | Photographs | Scanned pages | Saves a dark file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZoteroWindows, macOS, LinuxReader → Appearance → themes | The document | Kept | Handled | No |
| MendeleyWindows, macOS, web | Nothing | — | — | No |
| GoodnotesiOS, macOS, Android, Windows | Interface only | — | — | No |
| NotabilityiOS, macOSContent Matches Theme | The document | Inverted | Inverted | No |
| ObsidianAllAdapt to theme, or a community theme | The document | Inverted | No effect | No |
| SkimmacOSPreferences → Display → Invert colors in Dark Mode | The document | Inverted | Inverted | No |
| ZathuraLinuxrecolor (Ctrl+R), with recolor-keephue | The document | Depends on mode | Unverified | No |
- Zotero.
- Zotero 8, January 2026, stopped inverting images and now darkens them instead — a real fix, and most write-ups still describe the old behaviour. The Black theme added in 8.0.1 reproduces the old look and does still invert by default. Mobile has lagged the desktop reader. Source
- Mendeley.
- No dark mode. The only trace of one in the release notes is a dark-mode-aware favicon.
- Goodnotes.
- Darkens its own notebook paper and its interface; an imported PDF keeps its original colours. The feature request for imported PDFs has 1,149 votes, was filed in December 2022, and is still open with no vendor reply. Source
- Notability.
- Internally inconsistent by their own documentation: an image you paste into a note is deliberately protected from inversion, but images inside an imported PDF are inverted. Source
- Obsidian.
- Mostly a CSS invert filter, and in popular themes literally a toggle called “Invert PDFs in dark mode”. Known not to work properly on scanned pages.
- Skim.
- A full inversion, and Skim’s own documentation advises turning it off for documents with embedded photographs — an unusually honest warning about a feature’s limits.
- Zathura.
- Has an option specifically intended to keep hue while remapping lightness, which is the right idea. A long-standing tracked bug says it misbehaves on PDFs with embedded images.
Sheet music
| Reader | Dark mode changes | Photographs | Scanned pages | Saves a dark file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| forScoreiOS | Nothing | — | — | No |
| MobileSheetsAndroid, Windows, iOSNight Mode (distinct from Dark Theme) | The document | Inverted | Inverted | No |
- forScore.
- forScore say it themselves: they do not have a night mode. Dark mode dims the page rather than inverting it, and true inversion means using the iOS system-wide accessibility setting.
- MobileSheets.
- The developer describes it as inverting the colour of every pixel of the displayed image. One reported side effect is that chord colours shift — green chords coming out purple.
How this was checked
Vendor documentation, release notes, issue trackers and statements from vendor staff, in that order of preference. Where only user reports exist, the note says so. Where we could not establish something, the cell says unverified rather than guessing — there are 14 such cells, and leaving them visible is the point.
Two entries are worth singling out because almost every other write-up on the web still has them wrong. Zotero stopped inverting figures in January 2026 and now darkens them instead. Apple Preview gained a real document-level dark toggle in macOS 26, having had none before. We had both of these wrong ourselves until we checked, and in both cases the error made a competitor look worse than it is.
If a row here is wrong or out of date, we would rather know than not: [email protected]. Corrections get made and the checked date moves.
The gap this leaves
Every reader above darkens a page while you are looking at it. None of them change the file, which is why the same document is bright again on your phone, in someone else’s inbox, and on paper. Converting the PDF itself is the other way round: the colours live in the document, so it is dark everywhere, in any reader, offline, permanently — and photographs keep their own colours rather than becoming negatives.