philjohnson

You're encountering this error if the document uploaded is encrypted. I previously supported it, but ran into issues re-encrypting the PDF when you download. I'll fix this soon so it is supported properly. In the mean time I'll handle encrypted documents more gracefully. Thanks for pointing the error out

No plans to open source at the moment, but I might consider it. I just added a Subscribe button to support further development of the software and get access to premium features.

Which features (if any) that if added would you be willing to pay for?

It's not open source at the moment, but I would consider it. Just have to think through it as once you go open-source it doesn't go over too well to go back. So, if I want to open source it, I want to be sure.

I'm sure some might like to modify it, though I think probably most people aren't developers and wouldn't want to.

There's no VCs or anything behind this, just me, and my costs are just a VPS to render the page, and all processing happens on the local device. So I have no reason to change any currently free features to ever not be free.

I'll be adding compression support for BreezePDF, so this can be done in a click

not yet available as open source. Open-source has two main purposes I think: trust, and customizing/integrating it into other products.

On the first part, since everything happens in the browser, anyone can see the html/javascript and inspect the Network tab and see that no network requests are made that send their PDF anywhere.

And on the second part, I think most people who use the software aren't developers and won't want to modify it, and I don't particularly see a use case for integrating this software into another one, outside maybe an internal corporate scenario.

Though, maybe I'll add something where you can pay to get the desktop version, similar to what Sejda does.

Thank you!

I'll take a look at improving rendering embedded font support. And that's a neat idea to be able to download it for offline, I'll give some thought to that. Appreciate your feedback!

Fair point. I added a contact email in the upper right for feedback and sponsorship. Let's see what happens

Thanks!

Ask to prevent accidentally closing the tab is a great suggestion, I just added it!

Resizing pictures and signatures is definitely something I'll add very soon.

Hm, mind describing more about how it wraps? Assuming you're referring to text you added? I haven't encountered that myself, but will definitely try and fix.

And thanks!

I developed another tool pdfredactoronline.com that does this. Full redaction/removal of content, not just blacking out text. I didn't include it in this tool for now due to the APGL license of the library that enables the redaction, but since something fully in the browser is kinda open source already, I'll see if I can comply with the license while including it in BreezePDF

Thanks! Text comments, redaction and flattening are definitely features I'll add.

One way it'll avoid enshitification is that I have no VCs or anything like that, it's just me. So I only answer to actual users.

My hunch is that while PDF editing is something people commonly do, most people probably don't want to pay for it, at least for basic features. My plan is to add Google Adsense, but in a way that is non-obstructive/intrusive.

Depending on feedback, I might add a paid plan for much more advanced features if there's demand. But all the features you mentioned that are missing, as well as all other basic features, will always remain free. Since all the editing happens in the browser, it's a win-win for privacy and lower resource utilization. I just have to render the webpage. It runs on a low cost VPS, so it costs me almost nothing to keep this software running. Given that, there's no current or future costs that would give any reason to remove free features.

Right now the signatures are digital ink, but I plan on adding signatures with certificates so it's more official.

PDF editor is used as a broadly encompassing term. Yes, other tools can edit existing text, but they upload your PDF to their servers, so it's not private if that's something you care about.

There isn't anything off the shelf that enables editing existing text in the browser, but it's something I'll build from scratch. So you'll be able to edit existing PDF text without compromising privacy.

It's accessible via a website so that you don't have to download anything, and everything running in your browser means the PDF never leaves your device, so it's 100% private.

There's no VC backing behind this, it's just me. And it's actually a win-win to have all the PDF editing happen in the browser. It both offloads resource usage to a local computer and makes it private. All I have to do is render the page and that's it. Given that, it costs me almost nothing to keep it running, so there's no reason to take it down.

I might post the repo, but if you don't trust it you can just open the Network inspection tab and you'll see that zero network requests are made when you edit a PDF

(1) Yes, I am very familiar with the WASM compilation of MuPDF. It's got a lot of great features. I actually built another product pdfredactoronline.com that does redaction fully in the browser using the MuPDF WASM compilation. The reason I don't use it in BreezePDF is MuPDF has an APGL license which requires open-sourcing any code that uses their software. Which, I guess technically anything fully browser based is essentially open sourced :) so perhaps I could use it here.

Since a lot of the basic functionality I've added so far is also covered by more permissible packages like the ones you mentioned, I've started out just using those. But thanks for bringing that up, I'll revisit using MuPDF for redaction and other features

(2) I went with pdf-lib-plus-encrypt because the original pdf-lib doesn't have functionality for password-protecting PDFs, and since pdf-lib-plus-encrypt does, I used it so I could have that feature

Scrolling is now fixed! And just updated so that if you click outside modal it closes. Working on update now so you can edit text you've already added.

Agree with you regarding fonts, bolding underlining etc. and having instant page deletion with undo/redo. Will definitely be adding soon.

Fixed the arrow closing the preview pane so that the page stays centered.

I plan on adding a lot more features so that it's on par with ilovepdf.com and smallpdf.com. The libraries I'm already using support many of the features they have, so it'll be easy to add them while keeping everything fully in the browser.

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks! I fixed the scrolling issue

check out pdfredactoronline.com I also built that. I had to make it separate for now as it's using MuPDF JS library which has APGL licensing, but I might add it in here if it seems I can add it while still complying.

Fixed now!

yes, that's why the description says "add text" not edit :)

there aren't existing packages that can edit existing PDF text in the browser, but I'll do it myself sometime soon