u/Ilmetallaro

Hi everyone! For the past 5 months, I’ve been spending my free time building LibrePDF, a fast PDF manipulator with minimal dependencies. To clear the air right away and explain the philosophy behind it: LibrePDF is focused on 100% privacy. It makes zero HTTP calls, everything stays locally on your machine, no telemetry, no analytics, not even local usage logs. I was sick and tired of uploading my personal data to cloud giants (like iLovePDF, Smallpdf, etc.) or relying on sketchy closed-source freeware.

Example of merge

Right now, it supports 8 operations. You have the usual suspects:

• Merge & Split
• Protect & Unlock
• PDF to JPG conversion
• Flatten

But also a couple of features I haven't really seen in similar projects:

• Metadata Cleaner: strips away hidden metadata from the file.
• PDF Info: lets you see crucial file details (if unencrypted) like author, page count, and whether it contains JavaScript or not.

Currently, I support Windows and Linux, excluding macOS (though nothing stops you from building it yourself <3). You can grab the portable binaries from the GitHub release tab—the zipped files are around 55/60MB and ready to run. I’d love it if some of you could test it out and give me some feedback, good or bad. If this tool stops even just one person from uploading sensitive documents to sketchy servers, it’ll be the best reward for these 5 months of work. You can find the code, binaries, and more info here: GitHub Repo

PS: As stated in the README, AI usage was kept to an absolute minimum. When used, it was never blind copy-pasting—I spent hours manually reviewing and testing every single line. I won't stress this point further.
PS 2: I don't have any tech-savvy friends interested in trying this out 🙃, so I have absolutely no idea about the UX. It's likely very unpolished.
PS 3: Initially, the window sizes were hardcoded. I switched to relative proportions, but I have no clue how it renders on 2K or 4K monitors. Let me know if everything blows up!

Hi everyone! For the past 5 months, I’ve been spending my free time building LibrePDF, a fast PDF manipulator with minimal dependencies.

To clear the air right away and explain the philosophy behind it: LibrePDF is focused on 100% privacy. It makes zero HTTP calls, everything stays locally on your machine, and it doesn't even support logging. I was sick and tired of uploading my personal data to cloud giants (like iLovePDF, Smallpdf, etc.) or relying on sketchy closed-source freeware.

This is an example of merge.

Right now, it supports 8 operations. You have the usual suspects:

• Merge & Split
• Protect & Unlock
• PDF to JPG conversion
• Flatten

But also a couple of features I haven't really seen in similar lightweight projects:

• Metadata Cleaner: strips away hidden metadata from the file.
• PDF Info: lets you see crucial file details (if unencrypted) like author, page count, and whether it contains JavaScript or not.

Under the hood, it runs on Java 25, and the UI is built with JavaFX and the AtlantaFX theme (which provides a really nice palette). Honestly? I've always considered myself completely blind when it comes to front-end development, and JavaFX seriously tested my mental sanity.

Currently, I support Windows and Linux, excluding macOS (though nothing stops you from building it yourself <3). You can grab the portable binaries from the GitHub release tab—the zipped files are around 55/60MB and ready to run.

I’d love it if some of you could test it out and give me some feedback, good or bad. If this tool stops even just one person from uploading sensitive documents to sketchy servers, it’ll be the best reward for these 5 months of work.

You can find the code, binaries, and more info here: GitHub Repo

• PS: As stated in the README, AI usage was kept to an absolute minimum. When used, it was never blind copy-pasting—I spent hours manually reviewing and testing every single line. I won't stress this point further.
• PS 2: I don't have any tech-savvy friends interested in trying this out 🙃, so I have absolutely no idea about the UX. It's likely very unpolished.
• PS 3: Initially, the window sizes were hardcoded. I switched to relative proportions, but I have no clue how it renders on 2K or 4K monitors. Let me know if everything blows up!