buffer-preview.nvim

Give your Neovim buffers real previews instead of raw file bytes.

Features • Install • Usage

buffer-preview.nvim hijacks the normal buffer read for supported files and replaces raw bytes with a read-only, navigable in-buffer preview. Keep the document inside Neovim, move with familiar Vim keys, and avoid context-switching to a separate viewer.

Requirements

The requirements depends on which preview you want, install only what you need.

Image preview

For PDF and presentation files (.pdf, .pptx, .ppt, .odp):

• image.nvim: handles image rendering
• ImageMagick: required by image.nvim
• pdftoppm: required to convert pdf to png
• pdfinfo: required to show metadata (status line)
• soffice: for presentation conversion (.pptx, .ppt, .odp)

Tmux support

For running image preview inside tmux, add to ~/.tmux.conf:

# https://github.com/3rd/image.nvim#tmux
set -gq allow-passthrough on
set -g visual-activity off
set -g focus-events on

Data preview

• sqlite3: for SQLite files (.db, .sqlite, .sqlite3)

Installation

With lazy.nvim:

{
  "propilideno/buffer-preview.nvim",
  event = {
    -- Image preview
    "BufReadCmd *.pdf", "BufReadCmd *.pptx", "BufReadCmd *.ppt", "BufReadCmd *.odp",
    -- Data preview
    "BufReadCmd *.db", "BufReadCmd *.sqlite", "BufReadCmd *.sqlite3",
  },
  dependencies = {
    "3rd/image.nvim", -- only needed for image preview (PDF / presentation)
  },
  opts = {},
}

Arch Linux

# Image preview dependencies
sudo pacman -S poppler imagemagick \
               libreoffice-fresh # Optional: for presentation preview

# Data preview dependencies
sudo pacman -S sqlite

Ubuntu / Debian

# Image preview dependencies
sudo apt install poppler-utils imagemagick \
                 libreoffice # Optional: for presentation preview

# Data preview dependencies
sudo apt install sqlite3

Default Configuration

All fields are optional. These currently configure the PDF rendering backend.

require("buffer-preview").setup({
  -- "pdftoppm" (default) or "pdftocairo"
  rasterizer = "pdftoppm",
  -- Rasterization DPI (higher = sharper but slower)
  dpi = 200,
  -- Where rendered page PNGs are cached
  cache_dir = vim.fn.stdpath("cache") .. "/buffer-preview.nvim",
})

Features

• buffer-hijacking: supported buffers are hijacked and rendered as previews instead of raw bytes
• page-viewer: read-only buffer with Vim-style page movement
• PDF support (.pdf)
• PowerPoint support (.pptx, .ppt)
• OpenDocument Presentation support (.odp)
• SQLite support (.db, .sqlite, .sqlite3)
• Parquet support
• Excel support

Usage

PDF / Presentation

Key	Action
j l ↓ ] } Space Ctrl-d Ctrl-f	Next page
k h ↑ [ { Ctrl-u Ctrl-b	Previous page
g	First page
G	Last page
<number>G	Go to page N
r Ctrl-l	Refresh
q	Close viewer

SQLite

Opening a .db / .sqlite / .sqlite3 file spawns a two-buffer workspace:

• Top — read-only result preview. Initially shows the database schema (tables, views, triggers).
• Bottom — editable SQL buffer. Write any SQL that sqlite3 accepts, including writes and DDL.

Key / Command	Action
:w (save the buffer) :BufferPreviewRunQuery	Run the whole bottom buffer as SQL

The bottom buffer's contents are preserved after a run. Successful write statements render Query executed successfully in the top buffer; errors render -- Error followed by the sqlite3 stderr.

How It Works

1. BufReadCmd hijacks supported files before Neovim reads their raw bytes.
2. The plugin replaces the file buffer with a read-only scratch buffer.
3. A format-specific backend generates preview data for that buffer.
4. The preview is rendered in-place while normal Neovim navigation remains in control.

For PDFs, the backend:

1. Detects page count with pdfinfo
2. Rasterizes pages to PNG with pdftoppm or pdftocairo
3. Displays the page with image.nvim
4. Uses page-navigation mappings instead of normal text editing

For presentation files (.pptx, .ppt, .odp), the backend:

1. Converts the presentation to PDF with soffice --headless
2. Reuses the same PDF page-count, rasterization, and display pipeline
3. Keeps the same in-buffer navigation and Page layout

For SQLite files (.db, .sqlite, .sqlite3), the backend:

1. Opens a two-buffer workspace: a read-only result buffer on top and an editable SQL buffer on the bottom
2. Runs an initial schema query against sqlite_master to orient the user
3. Pipes the bottom buffer's contents into the sqlite3 CLI via stdin and renders the result (table / success message / error) into the top buffer

Architecture

• plugin/buffer-preview.lua: dispatches buffer hijacking per backend
• lua/buffer-preview/image/viewer.lua: PDF / presentation preview buffer lifecycle
• lua/buffer-preview/image/converter.lua: converts presentation files to cached PDF with soffice
• lua/buffer-preview/image/rasterizer.lua: PDF page rasterization and cache
• lua/buffer-preview/image/display.lua: image rendering via image.nvim
• lua/buffer-preview/data/runner.lua: sqlite3 CLI wrapper (data backends)
• lua/buffer-preview/data/viewer.lua: two-buffer data workspace
• lua/buffer-preview/config.lua: backend configuration

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