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Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

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Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#51

Post by robocop2018 »

transitivebs wrote: post #5

I'm all about the open core business model.. but are you guys affiliated with the core pdf.js team? $440 / month is pretty hard to swallow. I love that you guys included a build vs buy section, but I think it's going to be difficult to land clients at this price point because higher end clients are more likely to choose the build vs buy option. Anyhow, the product itself looks well structured. Congrats & best of luck…

This is a commercially supported solution so the price is actually not bad ( given alternatives )

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#52

Post by Roritharr »

IvanK_net wrote: post #44

I spent about three years building the support for PDF into my graphics editor https://www.Photopea.com . While other editors "add stuff on top of PDF", Photopea "chews through" each byte of a PDF, and tries to make as much sense of it as possible. You can rewrite the existing text (with the same formatting), edit bézier curves, edit gradient fills. You can edit bitmaps on a pixel level. You can see the parameters as…

Wow. I've just done a couple of things that are very hard or next to impossible with Acrobat DC in Photopea without so much as hitch. Amazing Work!

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#53

Post by phonon »

niknikson wrote: post #47
phonon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you affiliated with PDFTron, the company that created this? Your posting history suggests you are. Please disclose if so.

Yes, I am employed by PDFTron. I've been leading this project since early 2019.

I was asking "robocop2018". Are you him?

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#54

Post by robocop2018 »

antoineMoPa wrote: post #12

This reminds me of the people who tried to sell Blender a couple of years ago [0]. [0] https://www.blendernation.com/2009/06/11/3dmagix-re-branding...

Or Linux Red Hat, iText Lib ( open sourced but under AGPL) etc. There is tons of open-source out there under commercial terms.

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#55

Post by robocop2018 »

saradhi wrote: post #48
niknikson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can extract text and form data -- we'll try to get some documentation around that in the next week or so.

"can" - easier said than done, especially tables. I don't see it in the Demo. Did I miss it ?!

I don't think this solution is doing what you are looking for. To detect tables reliably in PDF you need some heavy-duty AI like https://www.pdftron.com/pdf-tools/pdf-table-extraction/

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#56

Post by phonon »

akdarrah wrote: post #13

Hi Nick, Your product looks pretty awesome. It's super polished for your initial launch! Congrats! I'm curious how long it took to build the product and how large your team is? Do you have some initial customers? I'm building a similar paid Javascript Library business ( https://www.dropkiq.com/ ). I would love to connect if you want to share some ideas? Feel free to shoot me an email if you're interested: adam@dropki…

> how large your team is?

https://github.com/PDFTron/webviewer-ui/graphs/contributors

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#57

Post by williamstein »

transitivebs wrote: post #33
mkl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pdf.js Express is US$375/ month , or US$4500/year.

No, it's $440 / month if you look at the actual pay-per-month option.

Wow. This will be a good example in GPL versus MIT license debates...

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#58

Post by osrec »

IvanK_net wrote: post #44

I spent about three years building the support for PDF into my graphics editor https://www.Photopea.com . While other editors "add stuff on top of PDF", Photopea "chews through" each byte of a PDF, and tries to make as much sense of it as possible. You can rewrite the existing text (with the same formatting), edit bézier curves, edit gradient fills. You can edit bitmaps on a pixel level. You can see the parameters as…

Just wanted to say thank you for Photopea. It is brilliant!

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#59

Post by battery_cowboy »

niknikson wrote: post #45
battery_cowboy wrote: post #4

Do you just use the open source PDF.js engine or do you contribute back to the project with fixes and features?

Our intention with PDF.js Express is to provide a solution that meets a market need for a PDF.js viewer with out-of-the-box features. Building this viewer that wraps around the PDF.js engine was no small task and we do hope that it will provide some value to developers. With that said, our goal is to grow usage of PDF.js Express and the PDF.js project. Ultimately the more developers we can bring to the platform the b…

So you plan to post some advertising tutorials and grow the developer community, aka you're doing nothing, but you're not contributing to the project that is in the core of your product? No wonder open source projects die, no one gives back.

I'm not here to argue, just making an observation.

Re: Show HN: Pdf.js Express – PDF annotation, e-signatures, and form filling

#60

Post by robocop2018 »

phonon wrote: post #53
niknikson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am employed by PDFTron. I've been leading this project since early 2019.

I was asking "robocop2018". Are you him?

I am not "him" :) though I work at PDFTron

As Nick says the project is open source (https://github.com/PDFTron/webviewer-ui).

Express is available under under dual AGPL/commercial license ( similar to iText and lot's of other popular OSS )

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