Hi folks!

I’m the creator of BentoPDF. It is an open source PDF toolkit that runs entirely in your browser. Your documents stay private, by design.

BentoPDF started as a small side project, but over time it has grown into something much bigger. With our latest major update, BentoPDF now includes 100+ tools, all running fully client-side.

You can do the basics like merge PDFs(while preserving bookmarks), split documents, extract or delete pages, reorder files, rotate pages, and compress PDFs. Thee are also some advanced tools.

You can edit and annotate PDFs directly in the browser: highlight text, add comments, draw shapes, insert images, fill(including XFA) and create forms, manage bookmarks, generate tables of contents, redact, add headers, footers, watermarks, and page numbers.

BentoPDF also supports an extensive range of file conversions. You can convert Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Pages, CSV, RTF, EPUB, MOBI, comic book formats, and many more into PDFs, and also convert PDFs back into Word, Excel, images, Markdown, CSV, JSON, and plain text.

For images, BentoPDF supports a massive variety of formats, including HEIC, WebP, SVG, PSD, JP2, and and aalso other formats such as EPUB, CBR/CBZ. You can convert images to PDFs, extract images from PDFs in their original format, or rasterize PDFs with full DPI control.

There are also organization and optimization tools: OCR, PDF/A conversion, booklet creation, N-up layouts, page division, attachment management, layer (OCG) editing, metadata inspection and editing, repair tools, and advanced compression algorithms that rival commercial solutions.

The latest update also includes AI ready extraction tools to export PDFs to structured JSON, extract tables as CSV/Markdown/JSON, and prepare PDFs for RAG and LLM workflows.

All of this works entirely in the browser, without accounts, uploads, or tracking.

This is my first post here and I hope you like it. Any feedback or feature requests are appreciated. Thank you.

Github Link: https://github.com/alam00000/bentopdf

  • NullPointerException@lemmy.zip
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    7 hours ago

    The day I can digitally sign PDFs from this, it’d be the PDF editor. You’re doing the Lord’s work, thank you very much for this!

  • Codename_goose@sh.itjust.works
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    6 hours ago

    a small question, if I may.

    When I worked in technical support for a popular phone brand a lifetime ago, I had to make clickable “navigatable” pdfs. Create empty objects around apps and settings so that technicians could help clients without having access to their phone or device with current OS update. I would update mine and take screen shots then convert those with clickable objects to switch to the correct page to act as a sudo phone/tablet. Is this something that BentoPDF can do?

  • TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 hours ago

    Are there ways to use it via an API? In particular I’d love to be able to programmatically submit a Word or Excel document and receive a PDF back

    • Konraddo@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Unsure it fits your scenario but you could use VBA. In my case, we collect data via Excel then they get populated into a Word report template, and finally export to PDF for project delivery purposes, all automated using VBA.

    • alam@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 hours ago

      As its fully client side, it doesn’t expose any APIS. HOwever, I am writing an API only version of bentopdf on Rust

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Agreed. I spent a bit of time writing out a script for similar functionality for one of our business units, but I never was able to figure out how to convert excel sheets to a PDF to be able to merge them in the allotted time, so it just doesn’t support them lol.

      But I can see why it wouldn’t have an API, since the whole deal is it stays in your browser, and an API would mean sending the files to the server.

    • partofthevoice@lemmy.zip
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      10 hours ago

      My work processes PDFs from government sites, filling them out for end users automatically. Would be cool if the API could do this somehow. Parse fields, and let you put text into them.

  • JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I’m stoked to give it a try. I left my last PDF application because they injected AI into it. So I’ve been shopping around a little. I’ve been using Okular, but it’s really limited, even as a viewer. This looks awesome. Nicely done! I hope you keep at it!

  • tburkhol@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Great project. I like the 1-star reviews complaining about the lack of advertising and tracking.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    1 day ago

    Can it also redact text from documents without allowing you to just copy and paste it back out again?

    Asking for a friend.

  • stephaaaaan@feddit.org
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    17 hours ago

    What I would love to see is batch processing of mapped form fields from a PDF template, e.g. to fill out training certificate template pdfs with name, date, company, and instructor from a given CSV file, add a signature and print it. Is something like that possible? 🙂

    We currently use nodered, python and reportlab and I‘m looking to somewht simplify the process :)

  • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    I’ve used it before for a job application! I needed to send them sensitive data. Tysm!

    Great intuitive UI, does what it says, and it’s fast. 5/5

  • rotkehlchen@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Thank you so much. Why did you start this project, which certainly involves a lot of work? ( aka why are you so cool?)

    • alam@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 day ago

      Thank you! It started off as a simple tool as I wanted to merge PDFs visually by applying page ranges and I couldn’t find any offline tool for that. I happened to then post it on reddit, and people asked me to open source it. After which I kept adding features on request and here we are 😂

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      22 hours ago

      Honestly, I think this is just one where you try it for yourself. The compose file is about 4 lines long, I had the whole thing up and running in about 30 seconds (OK, 45; I forgot a port was already in use and had to redeploy).

      So far my one big complaint would be that the self-hosted version replicates the entire website, including all of the “Why choose Bento PDF” and “Try now” and so on. It’d be nice to just have the tools right there when I load it up. Other than that, well, it looks cool, I’ll know more once I actually try out the available options.

    • alam@lemmy.worldOP
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      24 hours ago

      Not sure, as I haven’t used Stirling and at the same time I didn’t make it to compete with other tools. Hence I never mention its better than xyz tool either on our github or website. Users would have to do their own due diligence in this case. However it does have the best bookmark tool in the market(yes, better than adobe acrobat) and also a form creator tool, among others, which you can’t find in other OS tools.

    • krash@lemmy.ml
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      16 hours ago

      As someone who have been using both, you don’t need an account to use bentopdf. All the data is processed locally, making it excellent for a single user scenario. I drink Sterling has a very handy omni-tool, but I dare say it’s a matter of preference.

      I go with bento where I can, and use sterling as a fallback.