hintview
hintview is a macOS document viewer for HINT files, letting you open reflowable TeX-based documents and read them with dynamic pagination.
What is hintview?
hintview is a lightweight macOS viewer for HINT files, a document format used for reflowable TeX output. It helps users open .hnt documents and read them in a window that repaginates content as the window size changes. Common use cases include viewing technical or academic documents generated by HiTeX or related TeX workflows. The app supports page navigation, in-document search, zooming text, and day or night reading modes. Users are most likely to encounter hintview as part of a TeX-focused workflow or through MacTeX, where it is distributed alongside other TeX utilities. Richard Koch has also distributed a macOS package for the viewer for users who want it outside a full TeX setup.
Key features
- Open and read HINT documents with the .hnt file format
- Reflow and repaginate pages automatically when the window is resized
- Search within a document and jump through matching results
- Adjust reading size with zoom controls
- Switch between day and night viewing modes
- Navigate page by page with keyboard controls
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Safety overview
Status: Safe
hintview is a legitimate document viewer used for HINT files in TeX-related workflows. Its normal behavior is consistent with a local reading app, and opening documents is its primary function. As with any document viewer, only open HINT files from sources you trust, especially if they come from unfamiliar archives or downloads.
Recommendation: Keep hintview if you read HINT documents or use MacTeX and related TeX tools that produce .hnt files. If you do not use HINT-based documents, it is usually optional and can be removed without affecting unrelated apps, though it may be useful again in TeX publishing workflows.
Common paths
/Applications/TeX/hintview.app
Cache paths
~/Library/Caches/edu.hm.cs.hint.hintview
Preference paths
~/Library/Preferences/edu.hm.cs.hint.hintview.plist
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