Podium

odium is a free, open-source score reader — a browser-based PDF viewer with an interface designed less like software than like an instrument: gesture-driven, and built to disappear into the music. What's new in version 2.1.

Podium works directly with PDF files, the form most sheet music takes today, whether scanned, exported from notation software, or downloaded from any of the web's free score libraries. Annotations are saved into the file as standard PDF, so a marked-up score is still an ordinary PDF: it opens anywhere, and the markings are visible in most PDF viewers. Nothing is locked to the app.

It runs entirely in the browser: no installation, no account, and no data ever leaves your device. Anything with a modern browser can run it — iPads and Android tablets, Chromebooks, laptops and desktops, even phones — and it can be installed as a Progressive Web App for offline use. The browser extension for Chrome and Edge opens PDF scores from the web, including IMSLP, directly in Podium.

There are no toolbars or menu bars taking space away from the music. Every tool and setting lives in Podium's circular menu, which floats above the score: expand or collapse it with a tap, drag it out of the way, park it at the edge of the screen, or summon it with a long-press wherever your finger happens to be.

Four layouts cover different ways of reading. Book layout comes as close as the screen allows to a printed score on a music stand: facing pages, with realistic, gesture-driven page turns, so reading and performing feel just as they do from paper. Horizontal and vertical Scroll layouts suit continuous reading and practice. Table layout shows every page at once, for finding your place and managing pages.

Annotation tools: a freehand pen and pencil for marking and highlighting, text notes, a library of nearly 3,000 SMuFL music symbols, and custom staves drawn with the rastrum tool — all with control over placement, size, and rotation.

Practice tools: a metronome that can conduct, an on-screen piano keyboard, a chromatic tuner, an audio and video recorder with looped playback, a stopwatch, and a clock. A magnifier zooms into fine detail without losing your place. Page management — cut, copy, paste, reorder, merge — lets you build exactly the score you need; pages can even be copied between scores open in separate Podium tabs.

There's nothing to set up — open the app and load a score. When you want to go deeper, the Guidebook documents every feature.

Podium is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3. Source code is on GitHub.