A beautiful and local-first PDF reader for studying dense things
Recently, I found myself having to read the book "C++ primer" and I just couldn't do it. Maybe my attention span is too little now with Claude and Codex, maybe I'm lazy... but I just couldn't get myself to focus. While reading, I needed something to do. I wanted to talk to the text, I wanted to leave notes, I wanted to use to use my keyboard to quickly flip through pages. The only good available option on a Mac was "Preview" and it was ok, but definitely not there. So I built Quincy primarily for myself. With it you can - "Talk" to the page you're reading, create a quiz about the page, and…
A beautiful and local-first PDF reader for studying dense things launched on June 6, 2026 with 6 votes, #2,066 of 22,647 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.
What it does
Quincy is a local-first PDF reader for Mac built for working through dense documents. Ask questions about the page you’re reading, generate summaries and quizzes, take notes, bookmark pages, copy text, and listen to passages aloud while keeping your place. On top of that, beautiful UI/UX with easy keyboard-based controls
Quincy is a Mac PDF reader for working through dense documents: ask the page questions, summarize sections, quiz yourself, take notes, and read selected text aloud.
Quincy helps you get through dense PDFs and actually enjoy it. Ask the page questions, summarize and quiz yourself, listen to passages aloud, and earn badges and streaks that turn every reading session into progress. A fast, local-first reader with AI that stays grounded in the page, speech for the passage you choose, and study tools a click away. Quincy copies PDFs into local app storage, remembers the page and zoom per book, and keeps the controls you use most in one compact toolbar. Open the assistant beside the PDF and ask follow-up questions grounded in the current page. Answers stay next to the source instead of pulling you into another app. Press R or click Read, drag over the part…from tryquincy.live
In the maker’s words, at launch
Recently, I found myself having to read the book "C++ primer" and I just couldn't do it. Maybe my attention span is too little now with Claude and Codex, maybe I'm lazy... but I just couldn't get myself to focus. While reading, I needed something to do. I wanted to talk to the text, I wanted to leave notes, I wanted…
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