Observed arrival · 2026-09-07
Glassine, the Mac reader that gets out of the way
A small, fast native macOS reader for PDFs and Markdown, free and open source under the MIT license.
○Open
⊠Login
$Paid
†Ads
✦Pretty
●Pro
◎Niche
◉Human
⚑Risk
ƒJS
Field notes
Glassine uses Swift, AppKit, and PDFKit for the reader, with WebKit running offscreen for Markdown typesetting rather than serving as the visible interface. Its Markdown workflow supports six print stylesheets or custom CSS, lays documents out as Letter pages, reports reading progress, and exports to PDF. The homepage also specifies a recent-files view covering the last thirty documents and describes automatic updates through Sparkle.
Observed signals
Read the marks
Editorial observations of this landing page, not a rating.
○OpenPublic substance visible
✦PrettyNotable craft visible
●ProPolished or operationally mature
◎NicheUnusually specific use
◉HumanPersonal, local, civic, or handmade
ƒJavaScriptBrowser-side code central
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