I Built 10 Free PDF Tools That Run Entirely in Your Browser

#pdf #opensource #javascript #webdev

No uploads. No signups. No server processing.

I built a complete PDF toolkit where everything happens in your browser using pdf-lib. Your files never leave your device.

The Tools

PDF Merge — Combine multiple PDFs into one
PDF Split — Extract specific pages
PDF Compress — Reduce file size
PDF to Image — Convert pages to JPG/PNG
Image to PDF — Convert images to PDF
PDF Rotate — Rotate individual pages
PDF Watermark — Add text watermarks
PDF Page Numbers — Add page numbers
PDF Protect — Password protect PDFs
PDF Unlock — Remove PDF passwords

Why Client-Side?

Most PDF tools (iLovePDF, SmallPDF) upload your files to their servers. That means:

Your sensitive documents travel over the internet
They sit on someone else server
You need to trust they delete them

With client-side processing, your PDF never leaves your computer. The JavaScript library (pdf-lib) does everything locally.

How It Works

Each tool loads your PDF into memory using the File API, manipulates it with pdf-lib, and gives you a download link. No fetch requests, no FormData uploads, no server endpoints.

// Example: Merge two PDFs
const pdfDoc = await PDFDocument.create();
const pdf1 = await PDFDocument.load(file1Bytes);
const pdf2 = await PDFDocument.load(file2Bytes);
const pages1 = await pdfDoc.copyPages(pdf1, pdf1.getPageIndices());
const pages2 = await pdfDoc.copyPages(pdf2, pdf2.getPageIndices());
pages1.forEach(p => pdfDoc.addPage(p));
pages2.forEach(p => pdfDoc.addPage(p));
const merged = await pdfDoc.save();