AI Console and MCP server

The AI Console

The AI Console is a chat panel inside Pdf Editor. Open it from the ✨ AI button next to the 💬 Feedback button (bottom-left), or from the Window menu. Type what you want in plain language; the answer is applied to the document in front of you and every change is undoable.

Ask it to "find every price and highlight it", "rewrite the second paragraph on page 3 in plain English" or "add a Confidential stamp to all pages". It uses the same document tools as the MCP server, so what an assistant can do, the console can do too — and Undo takes it back.

Choose the engine

Settings ▸ AI:

• Built-in — the default. Uses Rainbow Factory's server, no key or account needed.
• Claude (own key) — paste an Anthropic API key (sk-ant-…).
• OpenAI (own key) — paste an OpenAI API key (sk-…).
• Gemini (own key) — paste a Google AI key (AIza…).

With your own key you can also edit the Base prompt, the standing instructions sent with every request — house style, default colours, language, anything you always want applied.

Turn the MCP server on

1. Install Pdf Editor from the Mac App Store and open it once.
2. Open Help ▸ MCP Server…. Pick your client; the window shows a ready-to-paste configuration with the correct path to the app.
3. For STDIO clients (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) that's all: the client launches Pdf Editor's MCP process when it needs tools.
4. For HTTP clients, start the HTTP server in Settings ▸ MCP Server (toggle and port) — or launch the binary with --mcp-http [port]. The endpoint is POST http://127.0.0.1:<port>/mcp.

The MCP server is the app itself, launched with --mcp-stdio or --mcp-http. The path below assumes the app is in /Applications; copy the exact one from Help ▸ MCP Server….

Claude Code

Run once in a terminal (add --scope user to make it available in every project), or paste the JSON below into .mcp.json in the project folder.

claude mcp add pdfeditorpro -- "/Applications/Pdf Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Pdf Editor" --mcp-stdio

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdfeditorpro": {
      "command": "/Applications/Pdf Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Pdf Editor",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Then, in a Claude Code session, ask for something and watch Pdf Editor: "open the front document and list what's in it", "add a title in the top-left corner". Claude Code launches Pdf Editor if it is not running.

Claude Desktop

Add the same mcpServers block to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json and restart Claude Desktop. The Pdf Editor tools appear in the tools menu of every chat.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdfeditorpro": {
      "command": "/Applications/Pdf Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Pdf Editor",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code and Antigravity

VS Code: add to .vscode/mcp.json in the workspace, or to the user-level file opened by the MCP: Open User Configuration command. Antigravity: paste the mcpServers block above into its MCP configuration file (Settings ▸ MCP Servers ▸ edit the configuration).

{
  "servers": {
    "pdfeditorpro": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "/Applications/Pdf Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Pdf Editor",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Codex CLI

Add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.pdfeditorpro]
command = "/Applications/Pdf Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Pdf Editor"
args = ["--mcp-stdio"]

Streamable HTTP

If your client prefers an HTTP endpoint, turn the server on in Settings ▸ MCP Server and point the client at it. From a terminal you can also run:

"/Applications/Pdf Editor.app/Contents/MacOS/Pdf Editor" --mcp-http 8765
# → MCP HTTP server listening on http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp

The tools

Tools act on the document open in the front window and go through the same undo stack as the UI — undo reverts an assistant's change exactly like ⌘Z.

Document

Text

Images & links

Annotate

Pages

Forms

Watermarks