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Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

pdfwithlove.netlify.app

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Re: Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

#61

Post by forgotpwd16 »

vunderba wrote: post #23

Seems like Clientside PDF editors are the new "hello world" app these days. From the last couple months on Show HN alone: Show HN: PDF Quick – Free PDF tools with 100% client-side processing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46094734 Show HN: A privacy-first, client-side toolbox (PDF, Imgs, Dev) no server uploads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46018221 Show HN: FileZen – Client-side PDF and Video tools using…

Not even couple of months. Just within last month.

All with similar design, similar implementation, similar HN post. Literally AI slop.

Also:

Show HN: BentoPDF is a privacy first PDF Toolkit

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46657892 (this one just yesterday)

Show HN: NoUploadTools – Free Tools that don't upload your files

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46516400

Show HN: TechRex – client-side PDF editor (no upload, no watermark)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45611498

Re: Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

#62

Post by forgotpwd16 »

sieste wrote: post #59
vunderba wrote: post #23

Seems like Clientside PDF editors are the new "hello world" app these days. From the last couple months on Show HN alone: Show HN: PDF Quick – Free PDF tools with 100% client-side processing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46094734 Show HN: A privacy-first, client-side toolbox (PDF, Imgs, Dev) no server uploads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46018221 Show HN: FileZen – Client-side PDF and Video tools using…

Due to pdf popularity there is a lot of demand for pdf processing tools. And the format is so complex that there are many nontrivial and creative ways to do pdf processing. That's why these "Hello World" projects usually make Top 5 on HN, and one of the upvotes is usually from me.

>many nontrivial and creative ways to do pdf processing

They're all wrapping PDFlib and provide the same functionality.

Re: Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

#65

Post by pratik227 »

rho4 wrote: post #38

I developed an aversion to "with love"-marketing. I've seen too many products come full circle from idealistic "ad-free-forever" "will-never-sell-your-data" "open-source-forever" "customer-first" student-times to selling out everything.

Just to be clear, I’ve been contributing to the open-source community since 2020, and I have no intention of misleading anyone. The use of the word ‘love’ isn’t about branding off another product-it’s simply a tool I personally needed, so I built it. If you’d like, you can also check my GitHub to see my work.

Re: Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

#66

Post by thangalin »

For my hard sci-fi novel, I wanted people to give me feedback by annotating the PDF directly. Since I didn't know what local PDF editors they had available, I decided to vibe-code a web-based PDF annotation editor using PDF.js. (Yes, malicious users could have a field day by guessing the URLs.) It's pretty rough:

https://repo.autonoma.ca/?action=repo&repo=notanexus.git&vie...

Basically, you drop a PDF onto your own web server. The web server serves up PDFs via PDF.js on the client. When the user highlights text to annotate it, the date, time, and text of all annotations in the document are pushed back to the server. As the author, when I reload the same PDF URL, I can add, review, modify, navigate through, or summarize the annotations just like a reader. Here's a screenshot with a funny comment one of my beta readers made:

https://i.ibb.co/5gZMJ0qc/annotations.png

Beta readers wanted, see profile for contact!

Re: Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

#67

Post by pratik227 »

flexagoon wrote: post #32
vunderba wrote: post #23

Seems like Clientside PDF editors are the new "hello world" app these days. From the last couple months on Show HN alone: Show HN: PDF Quick – Free PDF tools with 100% client-side processing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46094734 Show HN: A privacy-first, client-side toolbox (PDF, Imgs, Dev) no server uploads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46018221 Show HN: FileZen – Client-side PDF and Video tools using…

Half of them also have a very obviously vibecoded front-end that looks exactly the same

So if a platform is vibe-coded, it suddenly has no value? When the Spotify founder vibe-codes an app, it’s praised—but when an open-source contributor like me does it, it’s seen as a bad thing? That doesn’t seem fair

Re: Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

#68

Post by pratik227 »

qbane wrote: post #64

The "source" link at the footer seems to point to the author's GitHub profile, not source repository. The repo under it contains no code either.

After the incident with Tailwind CSS, I decided not to make this open source. Sponsorship has been zero since COVID, so it’s genuinely hard for open-source developers to sustain their work

Re: Show HN: Pdfwithlove – PDF tools that run 100% locally (no uploads, no back end)

#70

Post by pratik227 »

NamlchakKhandro wrote: post #40
rho4 wrote: post #38

I developed an aversion to "with love"-marketing. I've seen too many products come full circle from idealistic "ad-free-forever" "will-never-sell-your-data" "open-source-forever" "customer-first" student-times to selling out everything.

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