Artefact

Free, open-source PDF reader and document editor for Android. Previously known as ClearPDF.

Read, sign and edit PDFs, open and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and keep notes, to-do and shopping lists, photos and voice memos on one liquid-glass desk. No ads, no accounts, no internet: everything stays on your phone.

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Artefact is the next version of ClearPDF, best known for its user experience and refined features. It installs over ClearPDF as an update and keeps your files where they are. Everything runs on your phone, on one Rust engine for PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and pictures; the app has no internet permission at all.

Featured by HowToMen

ClearPDF / Artefact was featured by HowToMen — watch from 9:08 →

Screenshots & Demo

_{No need to open the app — tap a PDF, Word doc or spreadsheet in WhatsApp, Gmail or any app and it surfaces as a floating glass card, right over your chat. Like Apple's Quick Look on Android. Swipe up to open it fully in Artefact.}

What you can do

Read and work with PDFs

• Read with smooth scrolling, pinch zoom, page thumbnails, bookmarks, a reading mode and in-document search.
• Select and copy text, with a liquid-glass magnifier; read pages aloud; run on-device OCR for scanned pages.
• Highlight, underline, strike out, draw ink, add shapes, text notes and pictures; edit the PDF's own text.
• Fill forms, sign with a drawn, typed or certificate (digital-ID) signature, and verify signatures.
• Organise, rotate, crop, delete and extract pages; merge, split, compress, protect and export PDFs; create PDFs from photos, text or scans.

Open and edit Office documents

• Word (.docx, .doc, .odt, .rtf, Markdown, TXT): read, search, read aloud, and edit paragraphs in place with bold, italic, lists, alignment and headings. Save as Word, OpenDocument, RTF, HTML, Markdown, TXT or PDF.
• Excel (.xlsx, .xls, .xlsb, .ods, .csv): a pannable grid with frozen panes and sheet tabs; type values and formulas that recalculate, format cells, insert rows and columns, find and undo. Save as Excel or CSV, or export to PDF.
• PowerPoint (.pptx, and text from .ppt): slides as pages, full-screen present mode, search, read aloud and export to PDF.

Notes, lists, photos and voice

• Quick notes with light formatting, to-do and shopping lists you tick right on the desk, voice memos with a waveform, and photo notes.
• A picture editor with exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, vibrance, saturation and rotation — the way Photos edits.
• A thought of the day to start writing from.

Quick Preview

Open a file from WhatsApp, Gmail or a file manager and it floats over that app as a glass card, like Apple's Quick Look. Drag it up to open it in Artefact, or close it and carry on where you were.

Supported formats

Rendering is done by Artefact's own Rust engine — no other app or online service is needed.

Supported Android versions

• Android 10 (API 29) or newer is required for Artefact.
• Artefact replaces ClearPDF as an in-place upgrade; your files and settings are kept.

Download

Open the release page and download the APK that matches your device:

The APK installs over ClearPDF and keeps your data.

Install via Obtainium

Obtainium tracks this repository's releases and installs updates automatically.

Tap the badge on your phone with Obtainium installed — it opens the add-app screen pre-filled. GitHub strips raw obtainium:// links from README buttons, so the badge goes through Obtainium's redirect page instead of linking directly.

If the badge doesn't open the app, add it manually:

1. Open Obtainium → Add App.
2. Paste https://github.com/Chethan616/ClearPDF.
3. Pick the APK suffix for your device from the table above when prompted.

Install the latest APK via ADB

Useful for quick sideloading from a PC or emulator testing:

# 1 — download the arm64 APK from the latest release
curl -L -o artefact.apk \
  "$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Chethan616/ClearPDF/releases/latest \
     | grep browser_download_url | grep arm64-v8a | cut -d '"' -f 4)"

# 2 — install over USB (or use -s <device-serial> to target a specific device)
adb install -r artefact.apk

On Windows (PowerShell):

# 1 — download
$url = (Invoke-RestMethod "https://api.github.com/repos/Chethan616/ClearPDF/releases/latest").assets |
       Where-Object { $_.name -like "*arm64*" } |
       Select-Object -ExpandProperty browser_download_url
Invoke-WebRequest $url -OutFile artefact.apk

# 2 — install
adb install -r artefact.apk

Tip: Use adb install -r -d artefact.apk if you are downgrading from a newer build. For emulators grab the -x86_64.apk instead.

Privacy and network use

Artefact has no internet permission — the Android INTERNET permission is not declared in the manifest and cannot be granted. The app has no analytics, no ads and no account system. Your documents, notes, recordings and photos never leave your phone. See PRIVACY.md for the full policy.

Technology

• Engine: Rust — PDF via PdfCraft, Word via WordCraft, PowerPoint via DeckCraft, Excel via GridCraft, images via LightCraft. One native library, libartefact.so, joined to the app with UniFFI.
• App: Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, with liquid-glass surfaces from AndroidLiquidGlass and Material 3 Expressive motion.
• Text recognition: bundled on-device ML Kit OCR.
• Languages: English, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal) and Russian.

Build and run from source

Requirements

• Android Studio with JDK 17 or newer.
• Android SDK Platform 36 and Build Tools 36.1.0.
• Android NDK (the version pinned in engine/rust-toolchain.toml).
• Rust with cargo-ndk.
• An Android 10+ device or emulator.

Build a debug APK

git clone https://github.com/Chethan616/ClearPDF.git
cd ClearPDF/android
./gradlew installDebug -Partefact.abis=arm64-v8a   # use x86_64 for an emulator

On Windows, run gradlew.bat installDebug -Partefact.abis=arm64-v8a. The build compiles the Rust engine with cargo-ndk and generates its Kotlin bindings automatically.

Build the release APKs

./gradlew assembleRelease

ABI-split APKs are written under android/app/build/outputs/apk/release/. Release builds use local signing credentials when configured; otherwise the debug key is used. Do not distribute a debug-signed build as an official release.

Run engine tests

cd engine
cargo test -p artefact-mobile

Project layout

To run from Android Studio, open the repository root, sync Gradle, and run the app module. ClearPDF's code and history are on the clearPDF branch.

Contributing and support

Issues, ideas and focused pull requests are welcome.

• Report a bug.
• Request a feature.
• Join the conversation in Discussions.
• Read the contribution guide and Code of Conduct.
• Report a security concern through SECURITY.md.
• Review known requests and reports in all issues.

If Artefact is useful to you, starring the repository helps others discover it.

FAQ

Credits

Artefact is built on PdfCraft for Android by the ArtCraft Team and storytold's PdfCraft, WordCraft, DeckCraft, GridCraft and LightCraft engines.

• AndroidLiquidGlass by Kyant0 for liquid-glass backdrop effects (Apache-2.0).
• AndroidLiquidGlassView by QmDeve for motion techniques (MIT).
• UniFFI by Mozilla for Rust–Kotlin bindings (MPL-2.0).

Every work Artefact uses, with its licence, is listed in ATTRIBUTION.md, NOTICE and the app's Settings ▸ Built with open source. You can also sponsor the project on GitHub.

License

Artefact is licensed under either the MIT License or the Apache License 2.0, at your option. Third-party works keep their own licences, listed in ATTRIBUTION.md and NOTICE.