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Show HN: Free, in-browser PDF editor

breezepdf.com

111–120 of 188 posts

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

#111
post #9

Wonderful! Inserted form-fields show up in Preview and Acrobat, which is not a trivial task. I run a little AI-powered tool that automatically figures out where form fields should go ( https://detect.penpusher.app ) and robustly adding form fields to the PDF was the hardest part. Fwiw, I do see the issue with being unable to scroll down across both Safari and Chrome.

[deleted]

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

#112

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…

I'll be adding compression support for BreezePDF, so this can be done in a click

Merge/compress with Max size / color-greyscale/ remove pages / multi format import like PDF and images as input / export options/ export into multiple files if file size exeeds certain size.

And like my earlier comment, a way to define these multiple steps in a flow so that people can do multiple steps with a single file without having to learn command

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

#118
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Open sourcing a piece of software, especially one that focuses on a broader audience like yours, can convince more people than just developers. The advantages of open source are well-known even among less techy people who aren't necessarily interested in self-hosting the application. It's a good way to quickly earn the trust of people who are initially sceptical of your product.

It shows to your potential users that, even if they decided not to trust the developer anymore in the future, they will likely still be able to use your application. Everyone praised Simple Mobile Tools until the developer sold it to an ad company. But because it was open source, people were able to fork the entire suite of apps to continue using them.

There's also a lot of growth potential. draw.io likely wouldn't be integrated into so many other products if it wasn't open source. It allows them to charge money (apparently) for specific integrations, simply because everyone is already familiar with the product.

Typst is another good example. Their compiler is free and open source, but the web app is not. Certain features of their web app require a subscription, which allows them to pay the bills. But I (and many other people) wouldn't be using and recommending it if the core wasn't open source, because if Typst ever disappears, I still want to be able to compile my documents. Currently this might not matter much for your app since PDF is a universal format anyway, but as you flesh out your product, it will become more important.

It's difficult to monetise open source software, but so much more rewarding if it does work out. And your app being targeted at the general public gives you a massive advantage, since the potential market is so much larger.

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

#119

Please don’t use the adjective “free” when describing proprietary software. We know you mean “free as in beer” but those outside our community may not and it may cause confusion over the meaning of free software.

if anything, "free software" should change its wording (when referring to freedom/libre).

there's no way you'll ever convince the masses who use software to not call it free or appeal to software that's advertised as "free".

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

#120

I tossed a legal document at it which was recently of passing interest to me, and it looks like embedded fonts still need some work. I'm not inclined to share a test case from what I have, which relates to a change of name and in any case was not really prepared by anyone especially competent when it comes to PDFs and their content; I tested with the first, facially void, version I was given. But it is possible I'll…

Emedded fonts only embed the used characters, so if ypu want to change "John" to "Mary" and there is no capital "M" elsewhere in the doccument, you are out of luck. Can this be your problem?
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