brave/brave-browser

Double click and drag doesn't work for text highlighting in PDFs

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#51144 opened on Nov 30, 2025

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OS/DesktopOS/Linuxfeature/pdfhelp wanted

Description

Description

Double click and drag in PDF files doesn't work.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open a PDF file in the browser
  2. Double click on a word and drag the mouse to select a few words

Actual result

Only the first double clicked word is highlighted

Expected result

It should highlight text to the place of mouseup

Reproduces how often

Easily reproduced

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave 1.84.141 Chromium: 142.0.7444.176 (Official Build) (64-bit) Revision dbdb1336cf66d49f25b189868cad563426d4346d OS Linux

Channel information

  • release (stable)
  • beta
  • nightly

Reproducibility

  • with Brave Shields disabled
  • with Brave Rewards disabled
  • in the latest version of Chrome

Miscellaneous information

No response

Contributor guide

Tech stack
javascripthtmlcss
Domain
frontend
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
PDF rendering basicsText selection APIsBrave codebase structure
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
45
Research direction
Investigate the text selection behavior in Brave's PDF viewer. The issue likely resides in the PDF plugin or extension that handles mouse events. Examine the logic for double click and drag to select words. Look at the PDF.js library or Chromium's PDF viewer code for known issues. Check the 'brave browser' repository for PDF related components. No linked PRs or comments yet, so the fix may involve modifying the selection handler to allow dragging after double click.