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Show HN: Pdf.to – PDF Editor, PDF to Word, PDF Combiner

40 points by nadermx 6y ago

colejohnson66 6y ago
I like the wide array of formats, but: I know people are going to ask, so I’ll bring it up: 1) why is this something we should pay for (when there’s a variety of free PDF conversion websites)? 2) how long are files retained for? The Privacy Policy has no mention of retention or deletion.
- nadermx 6y ago
  thanks for checking it out. 1)It's already free, just with a limit to number of free conversions. Pdf to word when OCR is a pretty expensive CPU task. And a lot of people have pretty large files (epubs with images etc..), so I tried to strike a balance between cost and profit. 2)Files are on the server for two hours, says it below all the converters, I'll also go ahead and add it
saradhi 6y ago
Are you tracking my conversions by IP - to keep me on wait for an hour?
- nadermx 6y ago
  Only log that a IP address did a conversion, not what conversion or what file it convereted, there is no association to files and IP address. After one hour the cache key of that IP address expires. I have gone ahead and updated the privacy policy to make this clear as well.
ibdf 6y ago
This looks nice, I think you could increase payed users by offering an API. I wouldn't pay for this outside of work because I wouldn't need it often. I wouldn't pay for this at work because I need integration. Where I work we always need PDF to something conversions, but we also need to have that functionality integrated to our apps. We have been user pdftk, and it's been great.
- itake 6y ago
  There are a lot of libraries that do most that this service does. Usually if you're processing pdfs, the pdfs might be sensitive or you have a lot of them, so its better to not share them with other companies / people and to use the library to parse it yourself in-line (or hosted as a lambda service). The pricing would have to be really low or I would need to be unable to find a good library for me to want to use an external tool for this.

40 points by nadermx 6y ago

I like the wide array of formats, but: I know people are going to ask, so I’ll bring it up: 1) why is this something we should pay for (when there’s a variety of free PDF conversion websites)? 2) how long are files retained for? The Privacy Policy has no mention of retention or deletion.

nadermx 6y ago
thanks for checking it out. 1)It's already free, just with a limit to number of free conversions. Pdf to word when OCR is a pretty expensive CPU task. And a lot of people have pretty large files (epubs with images etc..), so I tried to strike a balance between cost and profit. 2)Files are on the server for two hours, says it below all the converters, I'll also go ahead and add it

saradhi 6y ago

Are you tracking my conversions by IP - to keep me on wait for an hour?

nadermx 6y ago
Only log that a IP address did a conversion, not what conversion or what file it convereted, there is no association to files and IP address. After one hour the cache key of that IP address expires. I have gone ahead and updated the privacy policy to make this clear as well.

ibdf 6y ago

This looks nice, I think you could increase payed users by offering an API. I wouldn't pay for this outside of work because I wouldn't need it often. I wouldn't pay for this at work because I need integration. Where I work we always need PDF to something conversions, but we also need to have that functionality integrated to our apps. We have been user pdftk, and it's been great.

itake 6y ago
There are a lot of libraries that do most that this service does. Usually if you're processing pdfs, the pdfs might be sensitive or you have a lot of them, so its better to not share them with other companies / people and to use the library to parse it yourself in-line (or hosted as a lambda service). The pricing would have to be really low or I would need to be unable to find a good library for me to want to use an external tool for this.