React PDF Kit Vite

react-pdf-kit-vite

Use this skill when: the developer asks to add a PDF viewer using @react-pdf-kit/viewer to a Vite-based React project. For Next.js use the framework-specific skills.

Vite handles pdfjs-dist's ESM-only build out of the box, and RPConfig sets up the PDF.js worker automatically. There is no Vite-specific setup: the generic provider chain is all you need.

Gotchas

• Install only @react-pdf-kit/viewer. Do NOT install pdfjs-dist separately. It is an auto-installed peer dependency. You install pdfjs-dist yourself only when overriding its version (see react-pdf-kit-worker-config, which includes the Vite ?url worker recipe).
• No worker configuration is required. RPConfig sets up the PDF.js worker for you. Do NOT set GlobalWorkerOptions.workerSrc or pass a workerUrl for the default case.
• CSS is auto-injected by the library. Do NOT import a separate stylesheet.
• RPDefaultLayout is deprecated in v2. Use RPLayout for every new integration.

Procedure

1. Install the library

pnpm add @react-pdf-kit/viewer

2. Render the viewer

// src/PdfViewer.tsx
import {
  RPConfig,
  RPProvider,
  RPLayout,
  RPPages,
} from '@react-pdf-kit/viewer'

export function PdfViewer({ src }: { src: string }) {
  return (
    <RPConfig>
      <RPProvider src={src}>
        <RPLayout toolbar>
          <RPPages />
        </RPLayout>
      </RPProvider>
    </RPConfig>
  )
}

3. Mount it inside a definite-height container

// src/App.tsx
import { PdfViewer } from './PdfViewer'

export function App() {
  return (
    <main style={{ height: '100vh' }}>
      <PdfViewer src="/sample.pdf" />
    </main>
  )
}

The viewer adapts to its container, so give the parent a definite height (100vh or fixed), or size it via RPLayout's style prop.

To load a bundled PDF, import it (import pdf from './doc.pdf') and pass it as src; Vite resolves the asset URL.

Verify

pnpm install
pnpm build
pnpm dev

Open the dev server URL. The first PDF page should render with the default toolbar. Scroll to confirm pages mount as they enter the viewport (virtualization), and select text on a rendered page to confirm the text layer mounted.

References

• Vite asset handling: https://vitejs.dev/guide/assets.html
• Companion skills:
  • react-pdf-kit-setup: generic React fundamentals.
  • react-pdf-kit-worker-config: for overriding the pdfjs-dist version and configuring a custom worker URL (Vite ?url recipe).