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I built an online PDF management platform using open-source software
- porcoda 2y agoUnfortunately, most of the PDF work I do involves things I’m not uploading to a service - ever. I don’t care if they’re “deleted immediately after processing” - they left my control. This sort of software would be great if it were 100% offline. This isn’t just a niche issue either: this is a very real consideration for any corporate user. More companies are taking data loss and security issues seriously, which often means restricting what cloud services they are willing to use.
- sanusihassan 2y agoI understand that you want to keep your work private and not expose your documents to the internet, but there might be a situation where the document isn't that important to you and any online solution would be sufficient, let's say you one of your friends tells you to ask the ai a math problem they want to know how to solve/learn but the ai only understands text then you need to ocr the pdf which is jpg converted then copy it to the ai, you might be on your phone or away from your desktop environment, here you might consider using an online solution like pdfequips :)
- pan69 2y agoSounds to me like that (a desktop app version) is the product to sell (since the online service seems to be free).
- thekevan 2y agoI'd also not upload any personal or identifying docs up to this, but I would use it for fliers and it would REALLY be useful converting PDFs I downloaded off the ineternet to begin with. (I've downloaded stuff in the past that I had to convert in order enter the data on the PDF into my computer. Geologic data for maps, list of states with capitals, alphabetized by them--well before ChatGPT, the list goes on.)
- ranger_danger 2y agoStirling-pdf. You can self-host it. Even though it all runs locally anyway
- re-thc 2y ago> This isn’t just a niche issue either: this is a very real consideration for any corporate user Very true, but I'd wish this "common" knowledge is more widespread. Security is a major issue commonly overlooked. People do a lot of insecure things for convenience.
- m3h 2y agoIn that case, you can use https://www.pdftool.org/ https://www.pdftool.org/, which runs in the browser but offline and never uploads your files to any server.
- szundi 2y agoHow can I really know that as a random user
- Rinzler89 2y agoUnplug your network cable when you use it.
- zo1 2y agoAnd it stores it in local storage and uploads it using a service worker later when I'm online?
- Rinzler89 2y agoUse incognito mode then close that window before reconnecting online?
- navane 2y agoI'd suggest install a separate browser (there exists a myriad by now), unplug internet, use the service, uninstall the separate browser, reboot pc.
- Rinzler89 2y agoI suggest a separate VM for that, that you can delete when you're done. Add put the VM on a separate PC that you bought with cash off craigslist. Then toss the PC away in a different postcode when you're done. Then you can use the PDF tool safely without fear you're being tracked.
- harryf 2y agoI work at https://www.pdf-tools.com https://www.pdf-tools.com and we hear this again and again. Despite the proliferation of cloud services, most large enterprises DO NOT want their sensitive documents entering the cloud. And in some cases, e.g. patient medical records, there are strict regulations about how those documents can be stored, which means on-premise is a requirement. Good news for us, as that's what we specialise in, but also perplexing how trends in the software industry can completely ignore what customers actually want.
- iLoveOncall 2y agoNo PHP nor JavaScript SDK? You guys don't like money?
- harryf 2y agoIt's a fair point. Most of our customers work with CPP, C# and Java in enterprise / back office contexts, which is why no PHP or Javascript right now - we've been tied up with other priorities. That said we just added Python to our main SDK and PHP is coming. Plus our enterprise automation product can basically talk to anything via REST API ( https://www.pdf-tools.com/docs/conversion-service/api/conversion-service/ https://www.pdf-tools.com/docs/conversion-service/api/conver... ). But yeah - now you got me fired up to annoy some colleagues ;)
- tracker1 2y agoI would think that JS/TS support would be relatively high up... my own bias speaking, but a lot of development and effort to easing cloud apps is JS/TS centric.
- lomase 2y agoPHP and Javascript? So you never worked on "enterprise"?
- iLoveOncall 2y agoI work in a FAANG on stuff that is definitely "enterprise software", a major part of what we develop is written in TypeScript. I admit PHP will not be as good of a candidate but for smaller companies it is still extremely attractive, and it's probably easier to develop since you can write PHP extension in C.
- chakintosh 2y agodocker pull frooodle/stirling-pdf-base
- nashashmi 2y agoThis was on hn a couple of days ago. Stirling pdf is a self hosted docker container and this way you don’t have to worry about files being uploaded. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242639 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40242639 I almost thought this hn post was the same service wrapped in a show and tell.
- darken 2y agoI had just setup "Stirling PDF" on my home NAS a few of weeks ago, since my SO needed to merge some documents and I'd recently read that (or a similar) HN thread. I definitely would recommend it. It was really quick to setup; though my already having a reverse proxy with wild card TLS certs setup probably helped streamline the networking side of things. https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF
- hyuuu 2y agothis might be a stupid question, but how do the teams share the documents?
- nip 2y agoFor anyone looking edit/fill PDFs locally (the data you fill in and document you load stay in your browser): https://SimplePDF.eu https://SimplePDF.eu You can read more in the privacy policy [1] It can also be embed in any website [2] Disclosure: I’m the developer behind it [1] https://simplepdf.eu/privacy-policy https://simplepdf.eu/privacy-policy [2] https://simplepdf.github.io/ https://simplepdf.github.io/
- nicknow 2y agoIf this is entirely build using open-source software why not open source the site itself? Especially if you aren't planning to turn it into a commercial service.
- sanusihassan 2y agoi'm open-sourcing the backend, but not 100% of the code.
- zxexz 2y agoThis is quite nice, but you really ought to have some page accessible with attributions to the open source projects you're using to power this!
- teeray 2y agoAnybody have a good open-source receipt data extraction tool for PDFs?
- tappio 2y agoWe just launched a MVP for pdf data extraction https://excelifier.com/ https://excelifier.com/. The service is not open source and relies on open ai, which is probably a bit problematic in your case. However, we understand that privacy concerns are really important for many organizations. Making it self-hostable and depend on a locally running LLM is something that we are looking into.
- laurensr 2y agoIf anyone knows about a FOSS pdf form editor, please share!
- unanimous 2y agoYou can edit PDF forms by opening the files in Firefox, but maybe that's not exactly what you mean. I'm not sure about other browsers.
- torgeros 2y agoIf you're so keen on the open source aspect, could you make the sources of your website and the tools involved, too? Otherwise there is no use to it
- kordlessagain 2y agoI have a lot of similar tools and it's all Open Source: https://mitta.ai https://mitta.ai
- erremerre 2y agoI am always surprised there is absolutely nothing like the Adobe Acrobat Pro on the open source space. There are a collection of open source tools, everyone which is its own interface that does a subset of things. The alternative, which is an online service, it is not great...
- martin_a 2y agoPDF is harder than most people think due to its variety. While there might be a tool for every job, "one for all" is hard to do.
- madspindel 2y agoAny plans to make this available as a docker container?
- boffinAudio 2y agoI have 85,000 PDF documents, collected over a few decades. What I really want is a semantic interface to those PDF documents. Find me "all PDF files which mention <subject>", or "show me any PDF with python example code", or "all PDF's before 2011 on the subject of coding standards for SIL-4". I keep thinking this is out there somewhere, but whenever something new comes along I get bogged down in the details of setting it up. Surely someone has come up with an AI that you can just 'give the folder to' and it figures things out automagically?
- spiderfarmer 2y agoYou can do this locally with your favourite LLM and Open WebUI: https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui
- boffinAudio 2y agoLooks like I've got a few days of hacking ahead of me, thanks for the recommendation - will put it alongside the other suggestions and check it out when I do my "PDF sortout workbench" session ..
- timc3 2y agoHave you tried Paperless NGX?
- boffinAudio 2y agoNo I haven't, so thanks for recommending it to me - looks pretty detailed. I will try it out some time this week, maybe its exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks again!
- andro_dev 2y agoThis is what I use for that https://github.com/simon987/sist2 https://github.com/simon987/sist2
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- andretti1977 2y agoAm i missing something or does it lacks pdf editing functionalities like adding/editing text or adding images? I usually use https://smallpdf.com/edit-pdf https://smallpdf.com/edit-pdf because 99% of the times i simply need to compile fields with text and attach a png of my signature on some pages and resend the document to the organization that required me to compile it (schools, medical self certifications, governative tax entities and so on). For those need, smallpdf is fantastic, but obviously i'd prefer an opensource or simply a self hostable solution
- omegant 2y agoAt this point a new format should emerge as a replacement of pdf. It’s very useful and easy to publish, but working with pdf documents beyond reading and printing is way too complicated.
- tomthumb 2y agoBookmarked!
- sanusihassan 2y agoThanks! :)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xvfLJfx9 2y agoThis would be awesome, if it can be selfhosted. I work with sensitive documents I can't upload to a third party.
- hatenberg 2y ago90% overlap with the free and selfhostable stirling-pdf?
- Refusing23 2y agoi tried converting a pdf to markdown and i just got a large bunch of ... seeminly random numbers and letters.
- carte_blanche 2y agoI've been using Stirling-PDF as my go-to solution for any pdf needs and have never needed any other service. Open source gold standard for any pdf needs: https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF https://github.com/Stirling-Tools/Stirling-PDF
- julianwachholz 2y agoIt sure sounds interesting, but I'm only getting timeouts. A possible hug-of-death period should be over by now?
- sanusihassan 2y agoI decided to create pdfequips.com when a friend kept sending me PDF files for translation, realizing the widespread need for PDF solutions Now, it serves as a central hub for PDF management, offering conversion tools like PDF to Word and CSV, as well as OCR technology Over the past year, I extensively developed the website, leveraging a wide range of open-source tools on both the front-end and back-end.
- tqwhite 2y agoI think it looks like a nice tool, naysayers notwithstanding. I don't have sensitive PDFs and, though I would probably not use it for my tax return, I'll use it for other stuff. For my level of security, I'm happy enough with your promise to delete the stuff right away.
- sanusihassan 2y agoi appreciate your trust, and yeah belive me i'm deleting the files right after the processing, the way it works is that i'm saving the files uploaded as a tmp file then process it then delete them after the response. this is how the code looks like on the server side for most of the tools: ```python ... @after_this_request def remove_file(response): os.remove(tmp_file.name) return response return response ``` i don't have any reason to keep them.
- sanusihassan 2y agoindentation is not showing correctly, but you get the idea.
- saturn5k 2y agoThis is great, definitely going into bookmarks. The website design lacks some refinement, but overall easy to use.
- sanusihassan 2y agothanks for the feedback!
- epalm 2y agoNice roundup of tools! Just a small note, on safari mobile if I expand the Edit and then Convert sections, they open on top of each other. https://i.imgur.com/bSZdRTN.png https://i.imgur.com/bSZdRTN.png
- sanusihassan 2y agoThanks for bringing that up, I'll take care of that issue.
- xupybd 2y agoYou should run ads or charge for something. I suspect this is going to get very popular.
- sanusihassan 2y agoThank you for your suggestion, I'm considering keeping the basic functions free and adding premium features, but still not changing any of the core features i.e the website is going to work as is.
- mikabasketball 2y agoWhat do people use to perform those pdf tasks without uploading sensitive files to a website?
- sanusihassan 2y agoThe files are deleted immediately after processing I'm considering implementing WebAssembly (Wasm) to do most of the work on the client's device and enable offline use
- bruce511 2y agoYou say that here, but its not in the privacy policy as far as I can see. When you get to the stage of monetizing the site, I expect the most obvious starting point is monetizing the information inside the pdfs. Then there's the obscurity of how much (if any) is passed on to other services (like google). You may have one policy about the PDFs, they may gave another. So yeah, I'm in the "not for general use" camp myself. (Although there are edge cases where it may be useful.) Don't get me wrong, I can see the upsides, and your web site looks professional, but alas the downsides are too significant to overcome the inconvenience of searching out something local.
- acidburnNSA 2y agoPandoc, ocrmypdf, libreoffice, pdftk, pypdf2
- vikp 2y agoFor PDF to markdown, I recently released V2 of my tool marker - https://github.com/vikparuchuri/marker https://github.com/vikparuchuri/marker
- rch 2y agoThis is very effective - it consistently yields great results.
- tqwhite 2y agoThere is a site listed elsewhere in these comments that does the work entirely in-browser. That's what I would use.
- nilstycho 2y agoI am a happy user of smallpdf, which seems quite similar. What advantages do you offer?
- sanusihassan 2y agopdfquips is fast, free, and offers tools that are not available on smallpdf like pdf-to-csv, pdf-to-pdf-a, translate-pdf, you can OfCourse use what you feel most comfortable with, but i guess you should give pdfequips a try :)