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Show HN: BreezePDF – Free, in-browser PDF editor

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Re: Show HN: BreezePDF – Free, in-browser PDF editor

#12

Post by fn-mote »

k310 wrote: post #4

This may be outside your plan, but I really could use a pdf editor that makes Internet Archive book scans more readable. Apparently, the scanner(s) adopt some compromise setting that renders halftones OK, but gives all text a "dishwater gray" background. If there are few pictures, I run the PDF through a quartz filter in Preview to threshold the text and later merge graphics pages with the "contact sheet" view from a…

Sounds like a job for ScanTailor. I'm not aware of an actively developed alternative. The version on my system comes from ScanTailor Advanced [3].

[1]: https://scantailor.org/ [2]: https://github.com/scantailor/scantailor [3]: https://github.com/4lex4/scantailor-advanced

Re: Show HN: BreezePDF – Free, in-browser PDF editor

#13

Post by mmooss »

Great idea, though I haven't had a chance to use it much (yet). I especially appreciate the end-user control of the documents - that they never leave the user's computer. A question for any newish PDF application developer:

A valuable feature of PDFs is wide and long compability. What I output now should be fully readable and usable on any system and in 20 or maybe 50 years. [0]

How do you have confidence that what you implement meets that specification? For example, if I edit the text, how do you know BreezePDF isn't subtley corrupting it? If I compress or flatten it, how do you know that about the output?

In fairness, it's a question for any file-based application, but PDF has a special status in it's universal availability and functionality.

[0] Is the timeframe in the spec somewhere?

Re: Show HN: BreezePDF – Free, in-browser PDF editor

#14

Post by fn-mote »

Notice the IMO poor behavior of the author on the previous thread. [1] Search for 'philjohnson'. This post removes the contentious word "free" but still does not convey that no sign-up is required but you are apparently limited to 3 files without signup. Reading the previous thread was a turn-off enough for me to warn you.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47555636

Re: Show HN: BreezePDF – Free, in-browser PDF editor

#16

Post by philjohnson »

fn-mote wrote: post #14

Notice the IMO poor behavior of the author on the previous thread. [1] Search for 'philjohnson'. This post removes the contentious word "free" but still does not convey that no sign-up is required but you are apparently limited to 3 files without signup. Reading the previous thread was a turn-off enough for me to warn you. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47555636

Free is still in this post. It's free to use, you can use the editor as much as you want with 40+ tools. Just a limit of 3 exports.

Re: Show HN: BreezePDF – Free, in-browser PDF editor

#19

Post by philjohnson »

evaneykelen wrote: post #11

Is this a viable alternative to the Adobe PDF app on Windows? I'm looking for an alternative for our company to replace Adobe's bloatware.

Yes, it definitely is. It handles everything from the basics like editing, signing, and merging to more advanced stuff like OCR, redaction, and digital certificates all in a clean and lightweight interface.

The desktop app is only 58mb and uses effectively zero CPU, so it's about as far from bloatware as you can get.

Shoot me an email at joe@breezepdf.com — happy to jump on a call and walk you through it before you get it for your company.

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