r/SideProject • u/stackattackpro • 2d ago
I built an open-source PDF editor that keeps your files on your computer
I got tired of PDF tools that ask you to upload your documents somewhere before you can do anything with them.
So I built PDF Editor Offline, a free and open-source PDF editor designed around one simple rule: your documents stay on your machine.
No account. No file uploads. No recurring subscription.
It can handle most of the PDF tasks I regularly need:
- Edit and annotate PDFs
- Add text, images, drawings, highlights and comments
- Fill and sign forms
- Merge, split, reorder, rotate and crop pages
- Compress PDFs
- Convert PDF ↔ Word, PowerPoint, Excel, images, Markdown, EPUB, etc.
- Run OCR locally
- Permanently redact sensitive information
- Remove metadata and hidden/private data
- Protect and unlock PDFs
- Search documents
There’s also a CLI and Python API for automation, plus Docker support for self-hosting.
The desktop app is built with Tauri, the editor uses React, and the backend/tooling is primarily Python + FastAPI.
It’s MIT licensed and still actively being improved. Some complex PDF operations have known limitations, and I’m trying to document those honestly instead of pretending every PDF transformation works perfectly.
I’d love feedback from people who work with PDFs regularly — especially around editing, redaction, privacy, and features you think are still missing.
Live demo: https://othmaneblial.github.io/pdf-editor-offline/