Show HN: Free PDF Editor by TechRex – client-side PDF editing, OCR, compression

[Maaz-Sohail]

Hi HN — I’m Maaz. I built Free PDF Editor by TechRex, a privacy-first PDF toolkit that runs entirely in the browser (client-side). No signup, no watermark.

Why: I was frustrated that many “free” PDF tools require uploads, add watermarks, or force accounts. I wanted a simple tool where files stay on-device by default.

What it includes: - Edit & annotate: type on PDF, highlight, draw/markup, add notes - Add images/branding: insert images/photos, add a logo to a PDF - Organize: merge, split, extract pages, delete pages - Compression: compress for email/WhatsApp/portal uploads + target sizes (100KB, 200KB, 500KB, 1MB, 2MB, 5MB, 10MB) - OCR: detect scanned PDFs, make PDFs searchable (Ctrl+F), improve copy/paste + conversion accuracy - Converters: PDF ↔ Word/Excel/PPTX, image ↔ PDF, HTML ↔ PDF, PDF ↔ text, image-to-text

I’d love feedback on: 1) UX: should the homepage focus on Edit vs Compress vs OCR? 2) Quality: which formats/conversions/OCR cases break most for you? 3) Trust: what privacy assurances would you want to see (copy, UI, technical notes)?

Thanks — I’ll respond to every comment and prioritize fixes/features based on feedback.

[forgotpwd16]

Note, there's has been a wave of similar sites recently (2mo+ after you first submitted yours). See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46675926.

[Maaz-Sohail]

Haha i cant agree more, But a serious number of these posts are just baby projects without any solid outcome, as they don't usually offer promised results a.k.a editing pdf rather features like merge, split, reorder only not actual text editing and conversion features or OCR. A complete project needs more than a starting post ( mine 2 months prior which they tried to copy by motivation of AI only not bv their own mind, hence they are failing to provide said features and put coming soon on actual editing etc )