StrataRead

StrataRead is a research-focused PDF reader designed for scholars, students, and knowledge workers who read deeply and write seriously.

Unlike generic PDF viewers, StrataRead is built around the academic workflow: careful reading, precise annotation, clean text extraction, and seamless reuse of notes in writing tools.

Key Features

Research-Grade PDF Reading • Fast, native PDF rendering on macOS and iPadOS • Smooth navigation, zooming, and keyboard shortcuts • Optimized for journal articles and long-form scholarship

Precise Highlighting & Notes • Sentence-accurate highlights (no messy over-selection) • Inline text notes attached directly to passages • Color-coded highlights for visual organization

Clean Extracts • Automatically extract highlighted text and notes • Fixes common PDF issues like line breaks and hyphenation • View all extracts in a dedicated Inspector panel

Markdown Export • Export notes and extracts as clean, structured Markdown • Includes formatted citations (APA) at the top • One file per reference—perfect for Obsidian, Markdown editors, and writing apps

Built for Serious Work • Metadata fields for authors, journal, year, tags, and projects • Fast metadata-based search across your library • Designed to pair naturally with writing and knowledge-management workflows

Privacy & Ownership • PDFs remain yours, stored locally or in your iCloud Drive • No tracking, no analytics, no ads

Designed for Scholars

StrataRead is ideal for: • Researchers and faculty • Graduate and undergraduate students • Writers working with academic sources • Anyone who reads PDFs as part of a serious thinking workflow

StrataRead works beautifully on its own—and integrates naturally into broader research and writing systems.