PDF Tools

PDF is the category with the strongest case for local processing: contracts, tax forms, ID scans and medical records are exactly the files people are asked to upload to unfamiliar websites. Every tool here opens the document with a PDF engine running inside your browser — pdf-lib for editing pages, PDF.js for rendering them, QPDF for encryption — so the file is read, changed and saved on your own machine and never travels anywhere.

The everyday jobs are all covered: merge several files into one, split a file into ranges, reorder or delete pages, rotate scans that came in sideways, add page numbers or a watermark, and sign with a drawn or typed signature. Compress re-encodes the images inside a PDF, which is where nearly all of a scanned file's weight sits. Protect and unlock use the standard AES-256 encryption every reader understands.

Two conversions sit at the edges of the category: image to PDF builds a document from photos or scans, and PDF to image renders pages out as JPG or PNG. What the tools do not do: edit the text inside a PDF, or open files signed with certificate-based signatures without breaking that signature — both are limits of the format itself, and each tool page says so where it applies.