March 26, 2026
Pitch-black PDFs, bright-hot takes
Show HN: Veil – Dark mode PDFs without destroying images, runs in the browser
HN swoons over midnight-reading saver, throws shade at App Store, debates “no AI”
TLDR: Veil flips PDFs into real dark mode in your browser—text goes light-on-dark, images stay clear—and even makes image text selectable. HN loved the iPad app-like feel, flagged a broken astronomy PDF, compared it to Zotero, and sparred over adding a tiny neural net despite the “No AI” stance.
Night owls, rejoice: Veil is a browser-based tool that flips PDFs into true dark mode—text turns light-on-dark while images stay untouched—and even makes text inside images selectable with on-device scanning. It’s open source, free, private, and works offline. That’s the pitch, but the real show is the comments.
The hype train left the station fast. One iPad user called Veil “shockingly good,” gushing about saving it to the Home Screen as a mini-app and then firing shots at Apple’s gatekeeping: “Hey, HN, look at what you don’t need an App Store approval for!” Another midnight reader chimed in, “the exact target market,” while flexing a full-on dark stack: iPad, Veil, and a browser extension, reading a paper hilariously titled “Shifty Shades of Grey.” It’s not just function—it’s a vibe.
But drama? Always. A bug report landed with a thud: one user’s astronomy PDF stayed mostly blinding white with only a dark border. And then the spicy debate: despite Veil’s “No AI” banner, a well-known commenter suggested using a tiny neural net to decide which images should be inverted or dimmed, linking to invertornot. Cue purists vs pragmatists. Meanwhile, the tool’s being measured against old faithfuls—Zotero’s built-in inverter got name-dropped as the baseline to beat. Verdict so far? Big love, a few glitches, and a brewing fight over whether “no AI” is a feature or a limit.
Key Points
- •Veil provides a true dark mode for PDFs by inverting text while keeping images intact.
- •The tool performs OCR on images within PDFs, making embedded text (e.g., chart labels, figure captions) selectable.
- •Users can download a dark-mode version of their PDF for use and sharing on any device.
- •Veil is open source, uses no AI, works offline, and requires no signup.
- •The product targets readers needing eye-friendly PDF viewing without compromising image quality, such as researchers and medical students.