A PDF editor built by a student who got tired of bad ones.
Hi, I'm Jacob. I built Arkan because every "student tool" I tried felt like office software in disguise. I just wanted to read, highlight, and think — without twenty menus in the way. So I made my own.
Unlimited until the first official release. No nonsense.
💡 Why Arkan Exists
Most apps try to make studying productive.
Arkan tries to make it quiet.
It doesn't track you, gamify you, or bury you in pop-ups. It opens your PDFs fast, keeps them local, and gives you just enough tools to think clearly.
That's it.
No subscriptions you can't cancel. No "AI assistants." Just space to read.
🔍 Features That Matter
Clean reading
Open a paper, highlight what matters, leave a note in the margin. Done.
Real focus mode
Hide every button. Read like it's paper again.
Vector search
Find ideas that rhyme — across every text you've read. It's like your memory, only searchable.
Annotations that stay yours
Everything saves as plain data next to your file. If you leave Arkan, your notes come with you.
🧩 Behind Arkan
Arkan started somewhere between a philosophy paper and a mental breakdown.
I was drowning in PDFs, switching between six apps just to highlight a quote, and thought: why does studying feel like tech support?
So I opened a C++ tutorial and decided to build something simple. I didn't have a grand plan. Just a wish for a tool that didn't scream "productivity" at me. I wrote the first lines of code surrounded by coffee cups and open tabs I refused to close out of superstition.
It began working. Slowly. Then I realized how nice it felt when an app actually shuts up and lets you think. That became the rule for everything in Arkan: no noise, no nudges, just clarity.
I'm still fixing bugs, still learning, still excited every time someone downloads it.
If Arkan helps you read better, great. If it crashes, also great—because that means someone actually used it.
Thanks for being part of this little experiment.
— Jacob
💰 Pricing (Straight Talk)
No enterprise plans. No add-ons.
| Plan | For who | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free (current) | Everyone | 0 DKK | Fully unlocked during early development. |
| Student | .edu or .dk student email | 25 DKK/month | Keeps the lights on and supports updates. |
| Standard | Non-students | 45 DKK/month | For anyone who just likes simple tools. |
It's free while I build. Pay only if you think it's worth it later.
🔒 Privacy and Trust
No telemetry. No analytics by default.
If you enable PostHog, it runs locally and sends only anonymized usage stats.
Your PDFs never leave your device.
💬
I'm building Arkan because I think study software should respect your attention.
If that sounds right to you — give it a try. If not, that's okay too.