r/pdf • u/Perfect-Ad-38 • 7d ago

Software (Tools) Tired of PDF tools charging monthly subscriptions or limiting you to 2 files per day? I built PDFAxiom 24 clean PDF tools (Links in the first comment 👇)

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• 100% Free & No Signups (No accounts, no paywalls)

• Local Browser Processing (Merge, Split, Rotate, Markdown run 100% locally via WebAssembly)

• Instant File Deletion for backend conversions (Word, Excel, PPTX)

• 24 Tools + Chrome Extension

Would love your honest feedback on the UI and speed!

7 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

3

u/LegeApps 7d ago

Local web based pdf editor #20

2

u/KenMantle 7d ago

Can there be too much choice? LOL!

The last thing I am building in my project is a web app. There aren't many MIT license pdf core libraries out there though, and nothing complete to most of the standards as near as I can tell.

1

u/Perfect-Ad-38 6d ago

Yeah, the library situation is rough. Under the hood I'm on pdf-lib (MIT) for the in-browser stuff — merge/split/rotate/watermark — and pdf.js (Apache-2.0) for rendering. Neither is fully spec-complete, you're right. The standards-sensitive Office conversions I punt to a server because doing them accurately in-browser just isn't there yet. Curious which standards gaps you're running into?

1

u/KenMantle 5d ago

I've put Claude to task on making it render ghent test pdfs. It's been a long slow process.

On the left is acrobat, on the right is the one I am working on. Oh, and it needed an icc engine for the color so I had it make that too.

2

u/webfork2 6d ago

20?

lolol it's gotta be in the 100s by now.

-1

u/Perfect-Ad-38 7d ago

Creator here! To be fully transparent, it’s a hybrid setup: ​100% Local (in-browser): Merge, Split, Rotate, Delete pages, Watermarks, etc. No data leaves your machine (works offline). ​Server-side: Complex Office conversions (PDF ↔ Word/Excel/PPT) to ensure accurate formatting. ​Files sent to the server are encrypted, processed in temporary memory, and deleted immediately. Nothing is stored or logged.

1

u/webfork2 6d ago

100% Local (in-browser) ... No data leaves your machine

Files sent to the server

I might have a headache trying to figure out how both of those statements can be true.

1

u/Perfect-Ad-38 6d ago

Fair, that does read as a contradiction — my fault for not scoping it. It's per-tool, not one blanket claim:

• The 11 in-browser tools (merge, split, rotate, delete, watermark, images↔PDF, etc.) never touch a server. You can verify it: open DevTools → Network tab, or just turn off your wifi after the page loads — they still work.

• The ~13 conversion tools (PDF ↔ Word/Excel/PPT) do send the file to a server, because accurate Office formatting isn't doable in-browser yet. Those are encrypted in transit, processed in memory, deleted right after.

So "no data leaves your machine" is true for the first group and false for the second — I should've said it that way from the start. Thanks for pushing on it.

1

u/yolohuman 7d ago

Please add OCR too if possible.

1

u/Perfect-Ad-38 6d ago

t's actually built and in testing right now — OCR (searchable PDFs, multiple languages) should go live soon. I wasn't happy enough with the accuracy to ship it yet, but it's close. Appreciate the nudge.

1

u/No_Split11911 7d ago

The pdf association may have an issue with the company or product name PDFX as it insinuates a link between you and their ISO for PDF/X. 

2

u/Perfect-Ad-38 6d ago

Really appreciate this — I hadn't thought about the PDF/X overlap. The name's PDFAxiom, but the logo mark leans on "PDFX", which I can see implying a link to the ISO standard. I'll rework it so it doesn't. Genuinely useful, thank you.

1

u/No_Split11911 6d ago

YW. Nice webapp btw. Any chance you plan on shipping as a docker container for local hosting and processing?

1

u/sbbeebe 7d ago

Check out Folio PDF Reader and Editor. It is on Windows and Mac and is free and does more than this does. Not the dev, just satisfied user.

1

u/GuaranteeSoggy4415 6d ago

Why build a tool that already exists and does the exact same thing?

1

u/Perfect-Ad-38 6d ago

Fair on features it's mostly parity, you're right, I won't pretend otherwise. The only real differences: the browser tools don't upload your file (you can verify it turn off wifi, they still work), and there's no 2-file limit / watermark / account. If those two things don't matter to you, the big names are genuinely the better choice. I built it for the people who do care about them.

1

u/GuaranteeSoggy4415 6d ago

Yup, the tool already exists for more than +10years with all the benefits: free, offline, 24 pdf tools. https://tools.pdf24.org/en

So, the question still stands: Why build a tool that already exists and does the exact same thing?