PDF Toolkit

Role: Solo full-stack developmentTimeline: 2025Type: Web app / product

Next.js 16

React 19

Tailwind CSS 4

pdf-lib

PDF.js

Ghostscript (WASM)

dnd-kit

JSZip

PDF Toolkit hero image

PDF Toolkit is a client-side answer to tools like iLovePDF. It handles the everyday PDF jobs people reach for, including combining files, pulling out pages, reordering and rotating, converting to and from images, and compressing, and it does all of it inside the browser. Nothing gets uploaded. The marketing site and tool catalogue sit in front of a set of live workspaces, each one a self-contained tool.

The popular online PDF tools all work the same way. You upload your document to a server, it gets processed, and you download the result. For a quick image conversion that's fine. For a signed contract, an ID scan, a medical form, or a financial statement, it means handing a sensitive file to a third party and trusting their retention policy. There was a clear gap for a tool that does the same jobs but keeps every file on the user's own machine.

FrameworkNext.js 16 (App Router) with React 19

PDF editingpdf-lib for structural operations (merge, split, page manipulation)

PDF renderingPDF.js (pdfjs-dist) for previews and thumbnails

CompressionGhostscript compiled to WebAssembly, which runs entirely in the browser

Interactiondnd-kit for drag-and-drop page and file ordering; JSZip for bulk image downloads

StylingTailwind CSS 4 with a shadcn-inspired component set

AnalyticsPostHog

Merge PDFcombine multiple files, reorder them by dragging, and export one document.

Split PDFextract specific page ranges (for example 1-2,5) into a new file.

Organise PDFreorder, rotate, and delete pages before exporting.

Image to PDFturn JPG and PNG files into a PDF with drag-to-order control.

PDF to Imagerender pages to images with thumbnail previews and a ZIP download.

PDF Viewera built-in reader with zoom and page navigation, powered by PDF.js.

Compress PDFshrink file size using Ghostscript in the browser.

Built for discoverya proper marketing site with a sitemap, robots file, and an llm.txt for AI crawlers.

PDF Toolkit screen 1

PDF Toolkit screen 2

Compression was the standout problem. Real PDF compression usually depends on Ghostscript, a heavyweight native tool that lives on a server. To keep the privacy promise intact, I used a WebAssembly build of Ghostscript so that same engine runs locally in the browser. The compression is real, and still nothing gets uploaded. Reordering pages and files needed to feel physical rather than fiddly, so I used dnd-kit for smooth drag-and-drop, and I bundled multi-image exports into a single ZIP with JSZip instead of firing off a dozen downloads.

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Overview

TheProblem

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