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PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

pdftool.org

11–20 of 198 posts

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#11
The lack of a good PDF editor in Linux has always seemed strange to me, considering the relative frequency of "fiddle with a PDF" tasks like splicing pages and so on.

Sure you can do it with Pdftk (or stapler these days), and a mish-mash of pdfinfo, Imagemagick and so on but the GUI programs mostly seem pretty bad offerings considering they're a fairly thin shell around library operations.

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#13

"uses WebAssembly" - forgive me but what? How do I know my PDF isn't going to Russia? or China? I mean, I could wireshark it but I'd like to know more about what's in the webassembly. PDF's are sensitive to some organizations. As already stated, some orgs even block online pdf tools for obvious reasons. I'm interested in this but I would be even more so if there was source so I can audit. Since it's running locally i…

It's interesting that they don't just supply the source code. Are they hoping if there's enough interest then they can turn this into a service? This type of functionality is great but I don't like the black box approach.

Edit: After some consideration, maybe they're worried that someone else would create a service using their work.

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#14

"uses WebAssembly" - forgive me but what? How do I know my PDF isn't going to Russia? or China? I mean, I could wireshark it but I'd like to know more about what's in the webassembly. PDF's are sensitive to some organizations. As already stated, some orgs even block online pdf tools for obvious reasons. I'm interested in this but I would be even more so if there was source so I can audit. Since it's running locally i…

You can disable network requests using tools like ublock and violentmonkey.

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#15

"uses WebAssembly" - forgive me but what? How do I know my PDF isn't going to Russia? or China? I mean, I could wireshark it but I'd like to know more about what's in the webassembly. PDF's are sensitive to some organizations. As already stated, some orgs even block online pdf tools for obvious reasons. I'm interested in this but I would be even more so if there was source so I can audit. Since it's running locally i…

> going to Russia? or China?

always ironic when ppl say this on websites hosted in the us, a country with the most documented cases of governmental organisation backdooring/spying :/

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#16

"uses WebAssembly" - forgive me but what? How do I know my PDF isn't going to Russia? or China? I mean, I could wireshark it but I'd like to know more about what's in the webassembly. PDF's are sensitive to some organizations. As already stated, some orgs even block online pdf tools for obvious reasons. I'm interested in this but I would be even more so if there was source so I can audit. Since it's running locally i…

Isn't this true of basically every single program, in browser or not? If you're worried turn off network access

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#17
Big fan of the idea of offline in-browser tools: works on any device, and "installing" the program is as simple as visiting a webpage or opening the saved HTML file. This one uses WebAssembly, but even that isn't necessary: I wrote a couple of PDF tools for my own use that simply use pdf-lib: https://shreevatsa.net/pdf-pages/ https://shreevatsa.net/pdf-unspread/

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#18

"uses WebAssembly" - forgive me but what? How do I know my PDF isn't going to Russia? or China? I mean, I could wireshark it but I'd like to know more about what's in the webassembly. PDF's are sensitive to some organizations. As already stated, some orgs even block online pdf tools for obvious reasons. I'm interested in this but I would be even more so if there was source so I can audit. Since it's running locally i…

What does it even mean lol. I really like how you implied that it's a problem of WebAssembly.

How is checking a web page's network connection, WebAssembly or not, harder than reading ALL the source code (if you don't read them all you can't be sure!) of a non-trivial app?

Re: PDF Tool – Modify PDFs in the browser without uploading

#19

"uses WebAssembly" - forgive me but what? How do I know my PDF isn't going to Russia? or China? I mean, I could wireshark it but I'd like to know more about what's in the webassembly. PDF's are sensitive to some organizations. As already stated, some orgs even block online pdf tools for obvious reasons. I'm interested in this but I would be even more so if there was source so I can audit. Since it's running locally i…

Open website > disable internet/wifi > perform your task and close tab
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