| ▲ | vunderba 3 hours ago |
| 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 WebAssembly https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46339833 Show HN: JW Tool Box – Free, privacy-first web tools (PDF, Image, Converters) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065448 Show HN: PDFClear – Browser-based PDF tools with local AI (WASM+Transformers.js) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46036944 Show HN: Free PDF tools that run in the browser https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315672 Show HN: Client-side file tools – PDF, images, crypto, all in-browser https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46209627 |
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| ▲ | sieste 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| 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. |
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| ▲ | forgotpwd16 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >many nontrivial and creative ways to do pdf processing They're all wrapping PDFlib and provide the same functionality. | | |
| ▲ | sam_lowry_ an hour ago | parent [-] | | I am already well served by ghostscript, GIMP, Imagemagick, etc: Optimize PDF: #!/bin/bash
INPUT="$1"
OUTPUT="$(mktemp --suffix=.pdf)"
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook \
-dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile="$OUTPUT" "$INPUT"
mv "$OUTPUT" "$INPUT"
Merge PDF: #!/bin/sh
gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
-dCompatibilityLevel=1.3 -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook \
-sOutputFile=merged.pdf "$@"
And so on and so forth.Moreover, I see a webapp and I immediately assume everything I do in this app is exfiltrated and abused. I can check that the webapp advertised above is indeed local-first, but I can't be 100% sure they don't steal my data in a way I did not foresee, e.g. via websockets or cookies. Because I learnt this the hard way by being on Instagram and Gmail. | | |
| ▲ | ptspts an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Your commands to process PDF with Ghostscript are lossy (they lose lots of metadata and in minor ways they also change how the PDF renders), and they produce very large PDF files. | | |
| ▲ | x3ro an hour ago | parent [-] | | Can you expand on why the produced PDF files are supposed to be larger than the originals? I've not observed that yet. |
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| ▲ | tedk-42 36 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're being downvoted because not everyone has CLI access to a server and the required ghostscript binaries etc. Realistically, most 'normal users' have PDF needs like these links and we as tech people can safely give these sites to non-technical people and have confidence their data isn't being stolen on remote dodgy servers (think gas / electricity bills, invoices, bank statements etc which is a PII gold pot). |
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| ▲ | pratik227 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| During my college days, I used iLovePDF a lot, so I wanted to build an alternative to it. It’s not just about PDFs - I also have work in progress around image processing and related tools and Chrome Extetion as well |
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| ▲ | flexagoon 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Half of them also have a very obviously vibecoded front-end that looks exactly the same |
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| ▲ | greggsy 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They’re created to offer functional outcomes. If they’re doing so in a friendly interface then I’m cool with that | | |
| ▲ | flexagoon 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, if they're tested well enough that there are no obvious UX issues (which is usually not the case) It's just that there's zero effort put into them so they don't really offer anything of value. If you write a todo list-tier app, it would be completely useless to most people, but it's a learning project for you. If you vibecoded a todo list-tier app, it's completely useless to most people including yourself. |
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| ▲ | pratik227 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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 | | |
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| ▲ | bambax 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Also, PdfTk has existed for decades and is very solid (but Windows only, I think). |
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| ▲ | forgotpwd16 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 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 |
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| ▲ | lukaslukas 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Good point! I don't understand why this link received so many points. |
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