Discussion

Edit PDFs easily and securely.

intoXbox: Nice tool. I like the local approach. I think a nice feature would be to remove all PII from documents, so that users can redact PDFs and upload to their favourite LLM.

philjohnson: Good suggestion! I'll look into implementing that.

philjohnson: I made a first version of it if you want to check it out! It's under the "markup" tab

evaneykelen: Is this a viable alternative to the Adobe PDF app on Windows? I'm looking for an alternative for our company to replace Adobe's bloatware.

mmooss: Great idea, though I haven't had a chance to use it much (yet). I especially appreciate the end-user control of the documents - that they never leave the user's computer. A question for any newish PDF application developer:A valuable feature of PDFs is wide and long compability. What I output now should be fully readable and usable on any system and in 20 or maybe 50 years. [0]How do you have confidence that what you implement meets that specification? For example, if I edit the text, how do you know BreezePDF isn't subtley corrupting it? If I compress or flatten it, how do you know that about the output?In fairness, it's a question for any file-based application, but PDF has a special status in it's universal availability and functionality.[0] Is the timeframe in the spec somewhere?

arrsingh: Love it! Bookmarked for the next time I need to sign a PDF and then will pony up the $$.

philjohnson: Awesome! Would love to get your feedback once you try it.

fn-mote: Notice the IMO poor behavior of the author on the previous thread. [1] Search for 'philjohnson'. This post removes the contentious word "free" but still does not convey that no sign-up is required but you are apparently limited to 3 files without signup. Reading the previous thread was a turn-off enough for me to warn you.[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47555636

philjohnson: Free is still in this post. It's free to use, you can use the editor as much as you want with 40+ tools. Just a limit of 3 exports.

philjohnson: Thanks! Feel free to send feedback to joe@breezepdf.com if you get the chance to try it.Regarding your concern, if a manipulation of the PDF doesn't meet the standard specification, it won't render properly in a PDF viewer as it is in the present day, let alone in 20 years. All PDF viewers/editors worth their salt adhere to the PDF spec. So as long as the PDF specification stays the same, anything that renders correctly now in a PDF viewer will render correctly in the future.For something like compression, if the file reduces in size and the PDF renders the same (minus expected potential minor quality loss), then you have evidence right there that it worked successfully.I built BreezePDF with PDF spec adhering libraries, so everything should be up to standards.Let me know if that answers your question!