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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

#181

Post by [deleted] »

philjohnson wrote: post #179
lozzo wrote: post #178

Nice one. Since it's a Free in browser pdf editor, Why is it not on GitHub ?

Thanks! It's not on GitHub because I don't desire for it to be redistributed by others. I will be releasing a downloadable desktop version (as a Progressive Web App) with even more features for a nominal one time payment. It makes the most sense to do it this way because having some monetization is good motivation to keep improving the product, while people still getting the benefits of running it completely locally.…

[deleted]

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

#182

Post by gaws »

philjohnson wrote: post #97
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.

It's not open source at the moment, but I would consider it. Just have to think through it as once you go open-source it doesn't go over too well to go back. So, if I want to open source it, I want to be sure. I'm sure some might like to modify it, though I think probably most people aren't developers and wouldn't want to. There's no VCs or anything behind this, just me, and my costs are just a VPS to render the page…

> It's not open source at the moment, but I would consider it. Just have to think through it as once you go open-source it doesn't go over too well to go back. So, if I want to open source it, I want to be sure.

It's hard to trust your site's promise of "No uploads, 100% privacy guaranteed" when people can't audit the code.

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

#183

Post by philjohnson »

gaws wrote: post #182
philjohnson wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not open source at the moment, but I would consider it. Just have to think through it as once you go open-source it doesn't go over too well to go back. So, if I want to open source it, I want to be sure. I'm sure some might like to modify it, though I think probably most people aren't developers and wouldn't want to. There's no VCs or anything behind this, just me, and my costs are just a VPS to render the page…

> It's not open source at the moment, but I would consider it. Just have to think through it as once you go open-source it doesn't go over too well to go back. So, if I want to open source it, I want to be sure. It's hard to trust your site's promise of "No uploads, 100% privacy guaranteed" when people can't audit the code.

Yes you can inspect it, just inspect source. Since everything runs in the browser, it's all inspectable.

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

#184

Post by kengoa »

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…

I ended up making my app installable as a PWA based on this conversation myself. Changes were straightfoward to add on top of a Vite + React application: https://github.com/visprex/visprex/pull/62/files

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

#186

Post by philjohnson »

onlytrash wrote: post #185

Already using your tool and I really like it for the simplicity. Would you think an image OCR is a feasible feature?

Glad to hear! Yes, OCR is definitely coming, though it'll be in the one-time payment downloadable version. I'm curious, what is your use case?

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

#187

Post by onlytrash »

philjohnson wrote: post #186
onlytrash wrote: post #185

Already using your tool and I really like it for the simplicity. Would you think an image OCR is a feasible feature?

Glad to hear! Yes, OCR is definitely coming, though it'll be in the one-time payment downloadable version. I'm curious, what is your use case?

We have a position in accounting that gets all the delivery notes scanned. Usually there come many of them and they are not in order - or an order arrives over multiple different days. I played with your editor and used it to shift the the PDFs together that are from the same instance although collected over multiple weeks. I wished to be able to do search there. I could imagine we use this process in the future if searching is possible. It's not my task to DO it, but I like to introduce automation here wherever possible and also we really see the task getting easier / less prone to errors.

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

#188

Post by philjohnson »

onlytrash wrote: post #187
philjohnson wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear! Yes, OCR is definitely coming, though it'll be in the one-time payment downloadable version. I'm curious, what is your use case?

We have a position in accounting that gets all the delivery notes scanned. Usually there come many of them and they are not in order - or an order arrives over multiple different days. I played with your editor and used it to shift the the PDFs together that are from the same instance although collected over multiple weeks. I wished to be able to do search there. I could imagine we use this process in the future if s…

Got it, thanks for the explanation! When I add OCR I'll add the ability to search the OCR'd text within the document very soon when the downloadable version goes live. Stay tuned! I'll follow up in this thread once it's ready.
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