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
Great project. I like the 1-star reviews complaining about the lack of advertising and tracking.
haha thanks
Lol wait seriously? Surely those are a joke.
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!
It’s actually coming up in next release (: You will be able to sign with PKCS12, PFX and PEM certificates. And also validate them
Oh, wow, thank you very much for this!!
Thank you so much. Why did you start this project, which certainly involves a lot of work? ( aka why are you so cool?)
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 😂
You’re great for making this so everyone can use it. Thank you
(:
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
Thanks!
Thank you so much for this. We just started using it at our school. We were using StirlingPDF, but they went open core 🫤. Personally, I like that there is no auth, it keeps it simple.
That’s great to know. Thank you!
Been using this for a while now, wife and kids are also very pleased with it. Easy to use and great layout, thank you so much!
wow, that’s great to know
Does each user have their own account? Or can anyone and everyone see all the pdfs? Or are the pdfs only stored for the duration of the browser session?
There are no accounts or signup. All the processing happens locally in your browser. In fact, you can even use it offline once the page is loaded, and only you have access to the PDFs
Everything local, I assume, means no upload? My dad does house inspections and so there’s like 4 or 5 pdf forms he fills out all the time. If he were using this, would he upload the template every time, or could he upload it once and then fill it out multiple times?
I assume also that it wouldn’t keep a history of each finished file, and it’s all ephemeral?
It never keeps any history, the TTL for the document is only as long as you are not done with the processing. There is no template system now. However I am planning to include a JSON based templating system which you can upload once and save and can be reused to auto fill forms
I’ve used Stirling pdf in the past. How does it compare?
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.
I understand and I wasn’t looking for a "better or worst"assessment. I’ll give it a try even if I haven’t needed to manipulate pdfs. Always nice to add to the toolset.
Thank you!
No man, thank you!
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.
Just try the simple image, see https://github.com/alam00000/bentopdf?tab=readme-ov-file#-simple-mode-for-internal-use :)
Oh, perfect. Thank you.
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.
No account need for Stirling either. I will try to give it a go soon.
I was not very clear, sorry about that: sterling supports accounts and oicd logins.
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 :)
That’s interesting. I will see what I can do
Awesome, thanks :)
How does this compare tp stirling pdf?
The logo: all i see us the head between open legs
It’s supposed to look like a B 🥀
Too bad, now you are cursed with this knowledge
Or a B-2.
Looks great
Thank you!
This looks great!
Can you use it to overlay text fields and fill them?
Most of my uses are basic. Like filling out a PDF form that doesn’t have proper form entry fields. These are usually older government or bureaucratic/healthcare/school forms.
I end up adding text boxes and entering values, or adding an X on top of a checkbox, adding a signature PNG file and scaling it to fit the size. Sometimes I have to add a highlight overlay. Then I save it all as a single flattened PDF file.
Amazingly, this is hard to do in Acrobat and a lot of apps. I end up using a janky, 10-yo desktop app that is no longer supported.
You mean XFA forms? Then yes it supports it
Went to look up what XFA forms were (https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-learn/forms/document-services/pdf-forms-and-documents).
Most of the non-fillable forms I encounter are what that document lists as “Traditional” PDF forms, likely generated using older tools from print streams. For example, a school athletics release form, or a membership application for a small organization. None of them have any fillable PDF fields. The original expectation might have been to download and print out the PDF, hand-fill it, then fax the result back.
I’ll dig up a form like that I had to fill a few weeks ago and give it a try.
OK, just tried it with one of those old forms. Added a text field overlay and a signature. Even flattens before saving. Works great. Awesome, thanks!
Awesome!
Will try it, looks handy. Thanks!
Thanks! Let me know how it goes
It’s great. I added it to my self hosting stack, will be relying on it from now on. I can’t wait to need some pdf tweaking in the future!
People like you keep my world spinning. Kudos!
Nice, and thanks for posting here! We have a lot of discussion about projects, and it’s helpful when the creator/developer is around to respond to comments directly 😄
I saw the update on GitHub about the goal of working on it full time. I also swapped over from StirlingPDF and I’m excited to see where this project goes. Best of luck :)
Thank you! 😊
if you dont mind, how does this compare with stirling pdf? Ive never used any of these
I only used Stirling briefly before I learned about BentoPDF, so I don’t think I can give a fair comparison. I picked Bento because it felt faster and “simpler”, and I prefer not having to worry about accounts/upload/storage.
Other concerns with Stirling:
- their new license
- analytics in the past: https://www.xda-developers.com/replaced-stirling-pdf-with-this-self-hosted-pdf-toolkit/
Is there a function to create a booklet or brochure?
This was a very useful feature to print a number of pages and have them in an easy format to read.
However, at least my Ubuntu print driver doesn’t have this feature, and I would need an extra tool to achive this goal.
Yes there is a booklet feature along with NUP tool