Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#1

Post by desgeeko » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 1:52 PM UTC

Hi, I've just finished a rebuild of this function and added a lot of new features: info, page index, minimap, inverted index,... I think it may be useful for inspection, debugging or just as a learning resource showcasing the PDF file format. This is a pet project and I would be happy to receive some feedback! Regards

Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure
github.com

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#2

Post by Muromec » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

That's pretty cool! I would have used it a lot at my previous job if it existed back then. In my ideal world it should work somewhat like https://lapo.it/asn1js/ -- you drop a file and it does all the stuff locally.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#3

Post by SSLy » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

Damn, this is also convenient for forensics and finding watermarks.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#4

Post by xeon06 » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:18 PM UTC

Wow, I've been doing some PDF parsing at work and this is going to come in SO handy.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#5

Post by est » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

I remember there was a similar project on github allows visualize any type of binary data by a given schema. There was an TCP/IP example IIRC.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#6

Post by nonrandomstring » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

Well done. This is a very useful security previewing tool. PDFs are a menace.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#7

Post by swsieber » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

I've used the iText RUPS (free) for a while for debugging PDFs (as I have the "privilege" to work on code that extracts data from PDFs...). It looks like your introspection stuff might be a bit stronger, which would be great. I'll take it for a whirl.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#8

Post by ddulaney » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

est wrote: post #5

I remember there was a similar project on github allows visualize any type of binary data by a given schema. There was an TCP/IP example IIRC.

https://kaitai.io/ maybe?

It looks perfectly nice for its role, but I didn’t use it for my last project because I need serialization as well.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#9

Post by tyilo » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

Looks nice.

Would be better if all of the PDF's bytes where shown. Seems like `endobj` and `xref` are not shown.

Re: Show HN: HTML visualization of a PDF file's internal structure

#10

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

SSLy wrote: post #3

Damn, this is also convenient for forensics and finding watermarks.

[deleted]