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Show HN: Free, in-browser PDF editor

breezepdf.com

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

#101

Post by Beijinger »

denfromufa wrote: post #94
Beijinger wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#!/bin/bash # Convert images to PDF img2pdf *.jpg -o images.pdf # Merge PDFs pdfunite file1.pdf file2.pdf images.pdf merged.pdf # Compress gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook \ -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=compressed.pdf merged.pdf # Remove unwanted pages (e.g., page 3) pdftk compressed.pdf cat 1-2 4-end output final.pdf # Add page numbers pdfjam final.pdf --outfile final_numb…

This is very cool, are all these command-line tools open-source?

Yes

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

#102

Post by NoahZuniga »

philjohnson wrote: post #36
speerer wrote: post #17

Nice work. I've been building something lately to manipulate PDFs in the browser for privacy, although it's quite a different use case. I think I see you're using pdf-lib and jspdf - both great libraries, and I'm using both, but: (1) Have you seen the recent WASM compilation of MuPDF? I am also using it for some functions and find it really excellent with accessible APIs and highly functional. Worth an try! (2) We ch…

(1) Yes, I am very familiar with the WASM compilation of MuPDF. It's got a lot of great features. I actually built another product pdfredactoronline.com that does redaction fully in the browser using the MuPDF WASM compilation. The reason I don't use it in BreezePDF is MuPDF has an APGL license which requires open-sourcing any code that uses their software. Which, I guess technically anything fully browser based is e…

> Which, I guess technically anything fully browser based is essentially open sourced :) so perhaps I could use it here.

Open source isn't just about the source code being available (and when making web apps, there is often a compile step which makes the browser facing code not source code), but also about the license under which it is available.

It is in every sense of the word technically not open source.

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

#103

Post by buccal »

ugh123 wrote: post #89

Is this open source? I think the world could use a good free and open 'utility' app for PDFs. Its hard to do digital business these days without even moderate features needed in PDF editing without paying Adobe or non-free online services - JUST TO EDIT A DOCUMENT.

Not open source but free and works in Windows: PDFGear.

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

#104

Post by freeamz »

Doesn't seem to be working ATM:

Console. Chrome based browser. Uncaught (in promise) wc: Input document to `PDFDocument.load` is encrypted. You can use `PDFDocument.load(..., { ignoreEncryption: true })` if you wish to load the document anyways.

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

#105

Post by yusina »

philjohnson wrote: post #82
what wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume not based on their objection to AGPL libraries.

not yet available as open source. Open-source has two main purposes I think: trust, and customizing/integrating it into other products. On the first part, since everything happens in the browser, anyone can see the html/javascript and inspect the Network tab and see that no network requests are made that send their PDF anywhere. And on the second part, I think most people who use the software aren't developers and wo…

First of all, great tool!

> trust

That's exactly right. The main attractiveness of your tool comes from the "never leaves your browser", insinuating that other similar services do send your data to a server and then who-knows has access to your sensitive data. I really like that angle. But we don't know you. We can use some tools to check that nothing is transmitted today. But who knows about the future? Maybe you change your mind? Maybe once your service becomes popular you sell it for $$$ and the new owner silently pushes things to a server "totally securely, we promise"? Or is even malicious?

> anyone can see the html/javascript

Seeing minified javascript is not the same as open source. Nobody would claim that the google doc UI is "open source".

If you open source this and it turns out as great as it seems then it can make you world famous. If you keep it closed then it will probably disappear in the vast sea of similar sevices, server-based or not (since avg Joe doesn't know the difference and doesn't care). It's your choice to make.

> Though, maybe I'll add something where you can pay to get the desktop version

Ah, thanks for your honesty here. An angle describing your project in a more bad-faith way could now be that you run beta-testing of your proprietay software through this "free" service and intend to turn it into a closed pay product once the public testing has fleshed out the main issues. That's obviously something you are free to do instead of an open source product emphasizing freedom.

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

#106

Post by torwag2 »

So many smart people out there developing brilliant PDF tools—it's truly impressive! And yet... we still have billions of XFA-based form PDFs lurking in the shadows. Forgotten. Unopened. Untouched. Why? Because almost no tool can handle them.

Where is the hero who will rise to the challenge? The one who will finally rescue thousands of office and admin workers from the endless misery of XFA hell—a nightmare Adobe created and then abandoned in a pit of form chaos years ago.

Seriously, we need you. The world needs you. Be the one who ends the suffering. Be the legend.

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

#107

Post by philjohnson »

freeamz wrote: post #104

Doesn't seem to be working ATM: Console. Chrome based browser. Uncaught (in promise) wc: Input document to `PDFDocument.load` is encrypted. You can use `PDFDocument.load(..., { ignoreEncryption: true })` if you wish to load the document anyways.

You're encountering this error if the document uploaded is encrypted. I previously supported it, but ran into issues re-encrypting the PDF when you download. I'll fix this soon so it is supported properly. In the mean time I'll handle encrypted documents more gracefully. Thanks for pointing the error out

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

#109

Post by philjohnson »

yusina wrote: post #105
philjohnson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not yet available as open source. Open-source has two main purposes I think: trust, and customizing/integrating it into other products. On the first part, since everything happens in the browser, anyone can see the html/javascript and inspect the Network tab and see that no network requests are made that send their PDF anywhere. And on the second part, I think most people who use the software aren't developers and wo…

First of all, great tool! > trust That's exactly right. The main attractiveness of your tool comes from the "never leaves your browser", insinuating that other similar services do send your data to a server and then who-knows has access to your sensitive data. I really like that angle. But we don't know you. We can use some tools to check that nothing is transmitted today. But who knows about the future? Maybe you ch…

Thanks!

> trust All fair points that you're making. I see no reason I would change my mind to send PDFs to the server, but I understand your concerns. If I'm reading in between the lines of what you're saying, that the way to alleviate these concerns is to make it open source?

I think that's a compelling argument, but to play devil's advocate if most people realistically working with PDFs aren't developers and thus wouldn't go to GitHub to host it themselves, then what would change for them to have a self-hostable option? If I released a desktop version, might the average person would see that as "private" and have any privacy concerns relieved, whether it was open sourced or not?

There is always a degree of trust you put in any company's software you use, and it's up to the company to be good stewards of that trust. If they break it, it's always bad for business anyways. But there is a point that if it was open source, those who have the desire to do so can continue using it without any concerns, which is fair.

> anyone can see the html/javascript Yes minified javascript is not the same as open source, but mine is not minified. Plain HTML, CSS and vanilla JS. So given that and since all the editing happens in the browser, the entire source code is inspectable for anyone who wants to see.

Given that the average person editing PDFs is not tech savvy, and as you said they don't really know the difference between software options, then given that what do you see as the utility of open-sourcing, from a business or even public good perspective? Genuine question.

> Though, maybe I'll add something where you can pay to get the desktop version I can see why someone would think that, but really at this point I'm figuring out what/if there is a monetization method here, and I'm not set on a particular path. I don't have any agenda to just make it free then close it off. That'd probably be a bad business decision anyways. I'm not sure if desktop is something to charge for, or if desktop and the whole thing is better to be free and open-source along with premium features that people can optionally pay for that are outside the core scope. I'm still thinking through it.

Ideally, I'll make all core features open-source while there are also some extra features people are willing to pay for. I'm just still wrestling with even just from the public good perspective, for the vast majority of people that won't host it themselves how would they benefit from open-source versus the core features just being free?

Curious if you have any response to what I've laid out here.

Appreciate your thoughtfulness!! You've given me a lot to think about.

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