Story

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.