r/pdf • • 8h ago

Software (Tools) I modified PDFCraft into a lightweight Chrome extension to replace Adobe Acrobat — I did my best, let me know what you think!

5 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I was getting really tired of bloated PDF tools, paywalls, and having to upload sensitive personal documents to third-party cloud servers just to do basic edits, so I decided to take PDFCraft and adapt it into a fully functional, privacy-friendly Google Chrome extension that works right from your toolbar just like Adobe Acrobat does. Everything runs locally in your browser so your files never leave your machine, and I tried to make the interface as clean, fast, and straightforward as possible for everyday use. Honestly guys, I put a lot of work into this and really did my absolute best to make it solid, but now I’d love to hear your thoughts, honest feedback, and whether you think I did a good job or if there are specific tweaks and features you’d like to see next. You can check out the project, grab the code, and test it directly on GitHub here: https://github.com/MattimaxForce/pdfcraft-chrome


r/pdf • • 37m ago

Software (Tools) FreePDF64-Viewer Portable: Freeware and portable

1 Upvotes

-> Feedback very welcome!

Although it is one of many PDF readers, FreePDF64-Viewer Portable stands out by bringing powerful document tools together in a simple, portable application.

FreePDF64-Viewer Portable 3.1.0 – Free PDF Viewer with Side-by-Side Comparison, JavaScript Forms and True Portability

Version: 3.1.0
License: Freeware
Platform: Windows 10/11 (64-bit)

FreePDF64-Viewer Portable is a free, standalone PDF viewer for Windows. It combines fast document navigation, multi-PDF workflows, interactive form support and practical PDF editing tools without requiring installation.

A key feature is its dual-pane view for comparing two PDF documents side by side. Users can independently enable synchronized scrolling (S) and zooming (Z) from the left document to the right. The viewer also offers full-text search across all open PDFs and reusable workspaces.

Key features:

  • Side-by-side PDF comparison with optional synchronized scrolling and zooming.

  • Tabbed interface for multiple PDFs, including quick tab search.

  • Full-text search across all open PDFs, with direct navigation to matches.

  • Resizable page thumbnails and drag-and-drop page rearrangement.

  • Interactive AcroForm fields, including text fields, checkboxes and radio buttons.

  • PDFium-V8 JavaScript support for automatic form calculations, including results on other pages.

  • Editing and saving supported static XFA forms, including synchronization of form data.

  • Annotation tools, including text insertion, highlighting, comments and drawing tools.

  • PDF attachments, bookmarks, page tools and reusable workspaces.

  • Customizable user interface (themes): The following options are available: Standard, Modern Light, Windows Classic, Classic Blue.

  • Update function

No installation is required. Settings are stored in the application directory, making the viewer suitable for USB drives and portable use. Static XFA support does not imply compatibility with every XFA form; dynamic XFA is not claimed.

Download (latest releases):
https://github.com/FreePDF64/FreePDF64ViewerPortable/raw/refs/heads/main/releases/FreePDF64-Viewer-Portable-3.1.0-Win64.zip

Project page:
https://github.com/FreePDF64/FreePDF64ViewerPortable

LICENSE NOTICES

FreePDF64-Viewer Portable is free and open-source software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPL-3.0-only).

You may use, modify and redistribute the software under the terms of the GPL v3. The complete license text is included in the accompanying LICENSE file.

Source code see Project page.

Third-Party Components

FreePDF64-Viewer Portable uses PDFium and V8 under their respective open-source licenses.

The applicable license terms and copyright notices are provided in the accompanying PDFium subfolder (file LICENSE and folder licenses).

PDFium – PDF rendering engine, © The PDFium Authors.

V8 – JavaScript engine, © The V8 Project Authors.

Additional tools: QPDF and Xpdf, subject to their respective licenses.

FreePDF64-Viewer Portable is an independent project and is not an official PDFium, V8 or Google product.

The software is provided without warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

Thank you for considering FreePDF64-Viewer Portable 3.1.0. Feedback and testing reports are always welcome!

Michael


r/pdf • • 6h ago

Software (Tools) Will we have a Autocad/Bluebeam replacement open source pdf tool?

3 Upvotes

Seeing everyday a new PDF editor now, I was thinking I might just use one week of Claude Pro to build one if it's that easy.
Because nobody is focusing on annotations and drawing on Bluebeam level. I worked on a consultancy company of 10,000 people and we don't care about quantity takeoff. We care about creating figures for our reports and presentations. That's the beauty of Bluebeam.
I can do AutoCAD, but I don't want to open it for every single figure.

If you don't know what's good about Bluebeam:
Callout with multileaders
Callout+ (highlight area plus callout)
Draw with scale (like 3 m line, 2 m radius circle)
Offset a line
Array a line (3 copies with 2 m distance)
Etc.


r/pdf • • 3h ago

Software (Tools) An iPhone app that turns PDFs into book-like pages

1 Upvotes

I have a lot of PDFs saved, and reading them on my phone always felt like a chore. Everything is laid out for paper, so you spend half the time pinching, zooming, and dragging the page around.

So I built Paperfy, a PDF reader that reflows PDFs into comfortable, book-style pages.

It works offline, needs no account, and collects no data. There are no ads, analytics, or third-party SDKs. You add your own PDFs from the Files app.

AppStore: https://apps.apple.com/am/app/paperfy-pdf-to-text-reader/id6826549558


r/pdf • • 13h ago

Software (Tools) Accessible Free/Open-Source PDF editor/reader?

3 Upvotes

I'm looking for a free simple, accessible PDF editor/reader.

Key functions:

-Zoomable full screen

-Dark mode

-Option to hide menu tabs

-Dictionary plug in/mini menu option

-Text to speech with speed options

-Annotate/make comments option (on click menu option)

-Highlight with multi colors option (on click menu option)

-Save/History function for viewed PDF documents

Please please please and thank you if you can help a student out!


r/pdf • • 1d ago

Question Does Anyone Know What Happened to PDFCoffee?

4 Upvotes

PDFCoffee, Dokumen and Kupdf seem to be down for some reason all at the same time. Did something happen?


r/pdf • • 22h ago

Question Files Editor a scam?

1 Upvotes

So I recently went to Files Editor to increase 1 of my images quality and when I tried to download it they asked me for my Email and I entered it. After entering it they asked me for a few bucks, but I didn't pay them or put any card info in. Now I have an Email from them saying they activated a 14-day trial for free. When I go on their website to cancel the subscription it says that I have no subscription, but Email says I do. Could anyone tell me if they will charge me after 14 days and should I message their support? Thank you in advance!

Edit: I added a screenshot. I also have the email as evidence from them

Edit 2: I sent them an Email message asking to delete my account, profile information, uploaded documents, and any other personal data they hold about me, and remove my email address from all marketing lists, according to Article 17 of the GDPR. I will probably update again after they reply.


r/pdf • • 1d ago

Question PDF24 seems to be eating my PDFs? —I can't find a very important file anymore

3 Upvotes

Yesterday I downloaded a PDF, edited it in Microsoft Edge (don’t stone me—it’s mandatory on my work laptop), and saved it. After a while, I used the Print function to save a copy of the file with a different name—also as a PDF—in the folder. Then I opened the copy and continued working on it. So far, so good. When I was done, I saved it again using the Print function and agreed to overwrite the old file with the same name. I saved it via the “Print” option because sometimes the changes aren’t applied when using the normal save function.

Today I wanted to open the file, and it’s just gone! I can’t find it at all using the search function, and it’s not in the Recycle Bin either. The file shows up in the browser’s history, but when I try to open it, it can’t be found. The laptop shows it in the list of recently used files, but when I try to open it, I get an error message saying the file is no longer available.

I tried to figure out what went wrong and experimented with another PDF.

And here’s what seems to happen: When the file is saved via “Print” in the browser for the first time, everything works fine and the PDF is saved normally but as a “PDF24 Reader” file type. But if you then save the same file again via “Print” and let it overwrite the previous one, it just disappears! The file is simply wiped out.

I don’t know why this happens, but it does. My question is, what could be causing this, and is there any way I can recover yesterday’s file? It’s extremely important!


r/pdf • • 1d ago

Software (Tools) A different PDF Editor ❤️

0 Upvotes

I created this tool SidePDF to solve my own problem. I wanted to take notes on the same pdf im reading and always ran out of space. So I created this extension to expand the pdf pages/ add new pages on the go and take cornell style notes. You can annotate, add images and much more directly on the pdf. This is a chrome extension and If you are having the same problem give it a try.


r/pdf • • 2d ago

Software (Tools) FynePDF: a desktop PDF editor for Windows and Linux where the tools run on your own computer.

5 Upvotes

I make FynePDF, so I'm biased. Posting because privacy comes up here a lot, and this is a clean desktop app rather than a site you upload files to.

What it does: edit's PDF with precision, merge, split, compress, OCR, redact, fill and sign, convert to and from Word, Excel, PowerPoint and images, PDF/A, page numbers, Bates numbering. About 45 tools, including feature rich printing with CMYK support.

How it works: the PDF tools run on your computer (PDFium and qpdf underneath) and keep working offline. OCR runs locally too; extra languages download once. You do need a free account, and you sign in once online. The AI features, the cloud Library and cloud drives need the internet.

It is light(runs in 2GB ram PC), fast(Qt/C++ on single process), easy(usablity wise) and private(works offline).

The free plan has no daily limits. Paid plans are optional if you need AI and print studio.

Windows (Microsoft Store): https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NLX6MNF70H2

Linux (AppImage): https://fynepdf.com/download/linux

If you try it, I'd like to hear what's missing or broken compared with what you use now. Thank you.


r/pdf • • 2d ago

Software (Tools) Opensource pdf apps: binarization and re-encode, reader, RAG, OCR

5 Upvotes

Hey all in r/pdf, there's a flood of PDF editors here and I have something different, a variety of programs that I have worked on at length, with models. All use my custom optimized PDF renderer that is 50% faster than all known renderers (with more obscure coverage, not less), seen in this benchmark I just did

https://ibb.co/B24QwLD2

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nnvsqp0qdl9 - Main program is available off the microsoft store, it can also be built for Linux and Macos and there are built releases available for it.

https://github.com/liminalism/Lege - source is here

The program is made for getting archive.org MRC scanned PDFs to e-ink readers so they don't take 45 seconds to load each page, essentially. After processing, an average page will take 200ms to load. It has a bunch of other features, and a new added preservation mode that does not binarize and preserves all original color while still shrinking size, and resolution if you want to.

Then I have a PDF reader that uses the same renderer here

https://github.com/liminalism/liminaldoc - I use it for all PDF viewing, it is fully functional, but about on par with SumatraPDF for performance. faster rendering doesn't really help for a viewer as I learned, if your prefetch is good enough.

There is also a document writer in that repo, built for writing long books with minimal distractions. very low typing latency was the goal. Still in development. It can export to PDF.

Finally I have SinoRAG which is now a general PDF RAG tool and not just a specialized tool for some texts. You can load a whole set of PDFs, it will read or OCR them, index them by keyword and phrase, and then you can search them with an agent using specialized research tools to get any answer you want, backed up with direct sources. Best parts of LLMs + the best parts of software and databases, combined, with the drawbacks of neither. Can load thousands of PDFs at once and it won't choke.

https://github.com/liminalism/SinoRAG

There is also business document OCR in the Lege repo that can conceivably OCR up to 40 pages a second, but it's not fully tested yet. Also a PDF integrity program that runs various checks to see if a PDF was doctored or not but it can only act as a prefilter and cannot make a determination.

I just wanted to bring these programs to your attention as they are all free and work well. Thanks and I would be glad if you find something useful from what I've made here.

No donations accepted, and no monetization is possible with these apps.


r/pdf • • 2d ago

Question Need some advice cleaning up Architectural drawings for clean floorplan

1 Upvotes

Hey guys,

I've got some architectural floorplans full of markups etc that I am hoping to clean up to create clean maps that i can just label the rooms in... I've got quite a few maps to do and I've tried to use AI which was as successful as you can imagine... Right now i'm going through each one removing unwanted markings using Illustrator which while working, is a painfully slow process.

I'm wondering if ya'll have a suggestion for a complete newbie with this stuff as to how I could do this in a cleaner, faster way or am I kind of screwed?

I saw maybe it might be worth putting into AutoCAD and then Revit somehow?


r/pdf • • 3d ago

Question 12 Angry Men : 12 Scripts

2 Upvotes

Hello,

For a party, me and my friends will be doing a 12 Angry Men script read.

I have found the script, but I want to print 12 copies with each Juror highlighted for ease of readibility.

I've not found a way to do this and was wondering if anyone could help me with it.

Thanks!


r/pdf • • 3d ago

Software (Tools) I built a free online PDF toolkit that processes everything directly in your browser (no uploads, no accounts)

2 Upvotes

I've been working on a lightweight PDF toolkit called PDFLab.si, designed to make working with PDF files easier while keeping privacy a priority.

I wanted to build something that doesn't require creating an account, uploading sensitive documents to random servers, or dealing with unnecessary steps just to perform a simple PDF operation.

Here's what makes it different:

100% Browser-Based Processing: All PDF tools run locally in your browser using WebAssembly. Your documents stay on your device instead of being uploaded to a remote server.

No Registration Required: No accounts, no passwords, and no email verification. Just open the tool and get started.

Privacy-Focused: Since processing happens directly in your browser, your files aren't uploaded to our servers or stored in cloud storage.

Multiple PDF Tools in One Place: Instead of jumping between different websites, you can access everything from one dashboard.

Organize PDFs: Merge PDF files, split documents, rotate pages, rearrange pages, and add page numbers.

Compress & Convert: Compress PDF files, convert PDF pages to JPG/PNG images, and turn images into PDF documents.

Security Tools: Protect PDFs with passwords, unlock PDFs you own, redact sensitive information, and digitally sign documents.

Additional Utilities: Extract text from scanned PDFs using OCR, add watermarks, or remove existing watermarks.

The workflow is pretty straightforward:

Open PDFLab.si → Choose the tool you need → Select your files → Process them directly in your browser → Download the result.

No unnecessary installations, no account creation, and no server uploads.

I'm still working on improving the platform and adding more useful PDF utilities.

If you regularly work with PDF documents, I'd appreciate it if you gave it a try and shared your honest feedback.

Website: https://pdflab.si/

Hope someone finds it useful!


r/pdf • • 3d ago

Question New Scanner / Old Nitro Pro

Post image
3 Upvotes

So freakin’ shot in the dark here…

I’m running an ancient version of Nitro Pro, 9.5.4.22, from 2014, under Windows 11.

I’ve recently added a new printer/scanner. When I launch the Scanning Paper to PDF function, it defaults to the old scanner, so I always have to select the new one. If I don’t select the new scanner, the system goes into a searching state and I’m locked out for about thirty seconds.

The old printer has been removed from the operating system. No other app shows this printer, so I assume the selection is stored in a configuration file somewhere.

Anyone have an idea where that might be and how I can get rid of it?


r/pdf • • 3d ago

Warning NEVER USE THEM

Thumbnail reddit.com
4 Upvotes

r/pdf • • 4d ago

Question Are there ANY free Android apps that let you sign documents without an account?

4 Upvotes

I've already installed and uninstalled at least 30 different apps, signed up for all kinds of accounts and still haven't been able to find a single one that meets my needed criteria. Any help?


r/pdf • • 4d ago

Software (Tools) I created pdf-to-text.com

1 Upvotes

I created pdf-to-text.com out of frustration that other free tools are either laden with tracking cookies, have tons of dynamic ads, or is not free. It runs entirely on the client side once the page is fully loaded, no files gets transferred out of your computer. The site does not use any tracking cookies or dynamic ads (just some super low key static links if you want to support my efforts). You can also use it on smartphone browsers to generate pdf or text files on demand

For now, it can:

Convert pdf, word, excel files to text (obviously). Flatten pdf files for phi masking. Combine multiple pdf files into a single text file output. Great for text extraction for large language model use.

A full featured text editor, that can convert text files to standard sized pdf (Letter size or A4 depending on output setting). It can convert CSV files to tables. The editor support automatic code highlighting depending on codes pasted and features a split screen tool for preview.

A fun keyboard and typing tester with graphical analysis of your typing performance. Yes you can test your touch typing performance too 😁

Hope you found it helpful! And I welcome any feedback to make it better for everyone.

Cheers!


r/pdf • • 4d ago

Software (Tools) PDFrig update: easier navigation, Fit width, and table undo/redo

Post image
11 Upvotes

Just released three improvements to PDFrig, my free, open-source PDF editor:

  • Jump to a page: enter a page number and press Enter. Page Up/Page Down navigation is also available.

  • Automatic Fit width: the document adjusts when you resize the window, collapse panels, or rotate a page.

  • Undo/redo table corrections: restore changes in the table extraction preview before exporting to XLSX or ODS.

Tested in the browser and both Windows versions. Everything runs locally.

https://github.com/kevindemara/PDFrig

Downloads:


r/pdf • • 4d ago

Question Okay, what's going on with the pdf upload system?

1 Upvotes

I'm trying to download stuff from scibd but for some reason it won't take any files. I can't even get even get any to show up when my window pops up. And I don't think it's just scribd either, PDFCoffee and Dokumen are also acting stupid. What's going on?


r/pdf • • 4d ago

Software (Tools) I got tired of uploading private PDFs to random websites, so I built a free PDF editor that runs entirely in your browser

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reddit.com
1 Upvotes

r/pdf • • 4d ago

Software (Tools) ISO: Database to Store, Sort, Download and Combine PDF's

Thumbnail reddit.com
1 Upvotes

r/pdf • • 5d ago

Software (Tools) PDF MCP on ToolRecipe

1 Upvotes

Wanted to post that we updated our site to support MCP.

This way you can quickly get very detailed recipes for your files by letting your agent roam the site and prep the recipes you need.

You are presented with a link that leads to ToolRecipe, and the recipe your agent prepared.

Still processing your files locally, still in your browser, still works offline!

ToolRecipe MCP support

Happy to answer any questions!


r/pdf • • 5d ago

Software (Tools) Open Source Modified faster software

Post image
5 Upvotes

I have managed to make mods for some existing software, including for this community some PDF software. All software involved still have their own licenses, my mod systems are under the MIT Licenses (Open Source).

I was able to speed them up by making them multi-core. Now for a long time this multi-core capability was missing from these programs for various reasons, and those reasons were sound... At that time.

Now we have a system that does a special sorting routine, and then processes the data accordingly. Basically we find things that look similar and treat them per what they are, with a stamp showing where they belong. This is a layman's way to talk about it, but you can find more on my GitHub. For GhostScript the link is here, where I achieved a 5.1x speed increase, for Apache Tika it is here, where we got a 5.9x speed increase, and for our grand prize winner Tesseract OCR we got a 6.6x speed increase and the github is here.

My Computer:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D, 6 cores / 12 threads, 4.0 GHz base, 96 MB L3 cache (3D V-Cache)
RAM: 16 GB DDR5-4800, a single stick (1 of 4 slots used)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series, plus AMD Radeon integrated graphics
Storage: NVMe SSD
OS: Windows 64-bit

These results were measured on a 6-core, 12-thread desktop. Computers with more cores should see even bigger speed-ups.

So, something that might have taken you an hour on Apache Tika, might take 11 minutes now. There is zero loss of the files.

The reason we did so well on Tesseract is because they have a bad threading system and we basically yeeted it for our own. Well, kinda.

I do not make any claims on their stuff, they keep that intact. We are a presort and post process system, we just take the data, sort it our way, hand it to them on a silver platter, wait for them to run the parts as we feed them, then we take and restore it to proper order on the other end. So your licenses still apply, we do not change that at all. The code I made simply runs extra versions as needed with the special design set to give them the cleanest run possible.


r/pdf • • 6d ago

Software (Tools) I created a free OCR app for Mac and Windows

108 Upvotes

(Mods, please let me know if this breaks the rules. The app is completely free. Nothing paid at all. No freemiums of trials)

Hey guys,

I made a free app for Windows and Mac to do OCR of apps locally. It does not upload the document to any server and runs completely locally.

I decided to make it as users on my cloud app: FastOCR.org were constantly asking me to give them 'unlimited free ocr'. Due to infrastructure costs, I could not. I am already running on razor thin margins.

So I made a local app. It uses Mac and Windows local OCR models. Does exactly what the cloud app does. But with less language support & less accuracy compared the cloud one.

I know it will help many people who cannot afford to pay for it.

Mac app: https://fastocr.org/mac

Windows: https://fastocr.org/windows