Show HN: Free, in-browser PDF editor • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by philjohnson » Sun, May 04, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

chfritz wrote: post #132

Love the idea. However, there is no guarantee that the no-upload will not change. Which begs a question: wouldn't it be great if browsers provided a guaranteed "offline only" mode? Since they don't, I personally would prefer downloading this app as a standalone electron (or similar) app, or a docker container where I could disable Internet access.

Thanks!

The "offline only" app could be a PWA where you can access if if you're offline but I could even enforce disabling network requests in the code itself. Seems like the most straightforward solution to me. Could even make updates opt-in. Would keep it lightweight and easily accessible for anyone.

What do you think of this? Would you be willing to pay for this, or are certain features you'd be willing to pay for? Curious you're thoughts.

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

#142

Post by philjohnson » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

dimava wrote: post #140

kengoa wrote: post #131

Great project! I'm also maintaining a fully in-browser data visualisation/analytics tool [1] and I often found it hard to convince people that their data isn't sent anywhere. It's funny I also say the exact same thing that they can inspect the Network tab. As a potential alternative to open-sourcing the codebase, maybe a desktop version of the same tool (i.e. an Electron app) could help address the privacy concerns i…

I'm 50% sure adding a "Install offline app" button that installs PWA would be enough to make them believe otherwise Add a "Check for updates" button that redirects to chamgelog page in browser for extra points

This is a great idea. I was actually just suggesting PWA with opt-in updates in another comment I was just replying to, so it's affirming to hear someone else suggest it as well. Love the changelog piece.

Now the question is if people would be willing to pay. Perhaps it could be a nominal one-time payment to get the PWA and updates for up to a limited amount of time, or monthly amount to get updates indefinitely.

And maybe the URL accessed web version stays free with the core features, and PWA has benefits of both offline and some extra features.

Would you be willing to pay for something like this?

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

#143

Post by RKFADU_UOFCCLEL » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

I tested in Tor Browser at standard security level and it's blank except the thumbnails on the left show fine, so just a minor glitch somewhere is breaking it. I presume it doesn't support TOC then, which is a shame. On the upside, the signature feature is well appreciated, something sorely missing from most other PDF editors.

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

#144

Post by philjohnson » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #129

KTibow wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI - using service workers would automatically make it work offline and possibly be easier than trying to bundle it into one HTML file.

Oh, that's an excellent point, especially since this is a perfect case for workers more broadly. I've had a bit of an app dev interregnum these last or postpandemic years; if service worker support has advanced that broadly, then that's wonderful news! Not especially surprising news, I suspect, but wonderful. Last I afforded close attention, the state of play for service workers in iOS Safari particularly was "don't…

The service worker functionality can be expressed as a PWA! Based on the comments I'm thinking of heading in that direction.

As far as touchscreen PDF editing, that is 100% doable and something I plan on adding soon. Touchevents are supported natively in the web

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Touch_event...

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

#145

Post by philjohnson » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:31 PM UTC

RKFADU_UOFCCLEL wrote: post #143

I tested in Tor Browser at standard security level and it's blank except the thumbnails on the left show fine, so just a minor glitch somewhere is breaking it. I presume it doesn't support TOC then, which is a shame. On the upside, the signature feature is well appreciated, something sorely missing from most other PDF editors.

Sorry about that. Would you mind sharing the console logs? Perhaps it's showing an error that I can use to debug and fix. Thanks!

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

#146

Post by stefnotch » Sun, May 04, 2025, 5:51 PM UTC

I noticed that this tool doesn't preserve links within PDFs. ( https://github.com/Hopding/pdf-lib/issues/341 ) That's one of the main things I always try out with PDF editors, and it saddens me to see that this one also runs into that issue.

Fixes would be either using a different PDF library, or manually implementing that feature with the building blocks that pdf-lib provides.

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

#147

Post by kengoa » Sun, May 04, 2025, 6:11 PM UTC

philjohnson wrote: post #136

kengoa wrote: post #131

Great project! I'm also maintaining a fully in-browser data visualisation/analytics tool [1] and I often found it hard to convince people that their data isn't sent anywhere. It's funny I also say the exact same thing that they can inspect the Network tab. As a potential alternative to open-sourcing the codebase, maybe a desktop version of the same tool (i.e. an Electron app) could help address the privacy concerns i…

Thanks, and cool project you've built! Yeah, you're right on that it's perception problem rather than tech. It's interesting because it's much less intuitive to inspect the code/network requests for a desktop app which on it's face seems less transparent than something on the web, but the kicker is that there is no URL that you're accessing it from so it feels safer. I'm thinking now actually if I did a PWA? I think…

Yes as dimava commented above a PWA would be a great alternative.

> in a way it can be more honest for a developer with any commercial intentions to not open source something while offering paid ways to modify the source code

I appreciate that you made your commercial intentions clear in the comments and I agree that you don't want to walk back your license as it definitely leads to backlash. I think developers (i.e. people on HN) tend to trust open-core models more where there's a clear separation between the core open-source components and a paid offering but I guess you don't have to overindex on those given the general audience of this tool.

I don't know what your ultimate monetization goal is, but in my opinion one realistic path is an one-time only payment of some reasonable amount with the full feature as opposed to subscription (I saw your Stripe link in the source).

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

#148

Post by kmoser » Sun, May 04, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

andrecarini wrote: post #34

Labo333 wrote: post #27

Nice! Recently I had the need for pdf censoring, aka not adding black rectangles but actually removing the content underneath and I still haven't found a suitable tool. Any recommendation? Or even python library to do it?

Honestly, your best bet for securely erasing data from a PDF is by adding the black bars, printing it and then scanning the print.

You can bypass the messy printing step by just printing the PDF as an image, then import or OCR the image as a new document.

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

#149

Post by kmoser » Sun, May 04, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

philjohnson wrote: post #42

VisualByte wrote: post #39

Where is the repo? I do not trust the privacy...

I might post the repo, but if you don't trust it you can just open the Network inspection tab and you'll see that zero network requests are made when you edit a PDF

You can also use "offline mode" in Dev Tools to ensure that tab doesn't send or receive network traffic. Then you don't have to sit there monitoring it.

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

#150

Post by philjohnson » Sun, May 04, 2025, 8:33 PM UTC

kzrdude wrote: post #68

philjohnson wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, mind describing more about how it wraps? Assuming you're referring to text you added? I haven't encountered that myself, but will definitely try and fix. And thanks!

Just that the text block after entering four-five words starts on a new line, it's like regular soft wrapping, looks like I get a 4cm wide text box to write into. Which is fine as a feature, only bug is the two items mentioned (can't resize it and doesn't show up in the pdf with the same width of the text box).

Wrapping fixed! So now it only goes to a new line if you hit enter, which is probably the best approach. So the text should render the same in the editor as it does when it downloads.

Thanks for the feedback, and let me know if you run into any more issues!