ResearchCatalyst turns your PDF library into a structured research workspace. Highlight with your pen, tag by category, add sticky notes, and let the Research Panel surface exactly what you need.
15-day free trial · One-time purchase · No subscription
ResearchCatalyst is built around the natural workflow of reading, marking up, and organising — not the other way around.
Draw highlights naturally with your Surface Pen. The canvas-based system converts pen strokes into precise text-region highlights — no fiddly text selection needed.
Long-press to bring up the radial menu and instantly pick from six colour-coded categories: General, Use in Article, Needs Checking, Counter-Point, Key Statistic, and Quote.
Tap any highlight to attach a note. The editor shows the extracted text, category badge, and page number — so your notes always have context.
Every highlight and note across all your PDFs — searchable, filterable by category, and sortable by date or document. Click any card to jump straight to that passage.
Open multiple PDFs in tabs without losing your place. Switch between documents, or open a new one from the library — each tab remembers your scroll position and annotations.
When you're ready to write, export your highlights in one click. Markdown for your notes app, HTML for sharing, or a colour-coded PDF with category badges and page numbers.
Highlighted text is automatically extracted word-by-word using PdfPig. No manual copying — the text under your highlight is captured precisely.
Organise PDFs into research projects. Each project is a folder on disk with sidecar annotation files — readable, portable, yours.
Full undo/redo for all annotation actions — highlights, notes, category changes, and deletions. Multi-line highlights created in a single stroke undo as one action.
ResearchCatalyst isn't a desktop PDF viewer with touch bolted on. It's built from the ground up for pen and touch interaction on Windows tablets.
The virtualised PDF renderer handles documents of any length smoothly. Touch scrolling and pen drawing coexist naturally — pan with your finger, highlight with your pen. The radial menu is designed for thumb reach. The Research Panel works in split view.
Whether you're reading in portrait on the train or annotating in landscape at your desk, ResearchCatalyst adapts to how you actually work.
Six purpose-built categories help you organise highlights by intent, not just colour. Each one is searchable and filterable in the Research Panel.
ResearchCatalyst stores annotations in .rcanno sidecar files right next to your PDFs. They're plain JSON — you can read them, back them up, or write scripts against them.
Your PDFs are never modified. A local SQLite database provides fast search and filtering, while the sidecar files ensure your annotations survive even if you uninstall the app.
Move a project folder to another machine, open it in ResearchCatalyst, and everything is there. No sync service, no account, no cloud.
15-day free trial. One-time purchase. No subscriptions.
Your research, your machine, your rules.
Windows 10 & 11 · x64 · Surface optimised