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BentoPDF is a self hostable, privacy first PDF Toolkit (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 weeks ago by alam@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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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

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[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 18 points 4 weeks ago

Can it also redact text from documents without allowing you to just copy and paste it back out again?

Asking for a friend.

[-] alam@lemmy.world 14 points 4 weeks ago

Yes! It performs true redaction. You can find it in the editor tool

[-] JGrffn@lemmy.world 11 points 4 weeks ago

It is a civic duty to redact certain papers incorrectly.

[-] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

Certain files, involving a certain island.

[-] irmadlad@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

@Blackmist@feddit.uk works for the NCA. LOL

[-] NullPointerException@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 weeks ago

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!

[-] alam@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago

It's actually coming up in next release (: You will be able to sign with PKCS12, PFX and PEM certificates. And also validate them

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[-] tburkhol@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago

Great project. I like the 1-star reviews complaining about the lack of advertising and tracking.

[-] alam@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

haha thanks

[-] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Lol wait seriously? Surely those are a joke.

[-] TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 4 weeks ago

Are there ways to use it via an API? In particular I'd love to be able to programmatically submit a Word or Excel document and receive a PDF back

[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Agreed. I spent a bit of time writing out a script for similar functionality for one of our business units, but I never was able to figure out how to convert excel sheets to a PDF to be able to merge them in the allotted time, so it just doesn't support them lol.

But I can see why it wouldn't have an API, since the whole deal is it stays in your browser, and an API would mean sending the files to the server.

[-] TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 4 weeks ago

Maybe there's some way to use selenium or something like that so that it stays local.

[-] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 weeks ago

My work processes PDFs from government sites, filling them out for end users automatically. Would be cool if the API could do this somehow. Parse fields, and let you put text into them.

[-] alam@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

As its fully client side, it doesn't expose any APIS. HOwever, I am writing an API only version of bentopdf on Rust

[-] mrsilkworm@piefed.social 8 points 4 weeks ago

You're doing the lords work my dude. There are not enough ways to thank you for your work

[-] alam@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

(:

[-] rotkehlchen@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 weeks ago

Thank you so much. Why did you start this project, which certainly involves a lot of work? ( aka why are you so cool?)

[-] alam@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

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 😂

[-] rotkehlchen@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago

You're great for making this so everyone can use it. Thank you

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[-] cRazi_man@europe.pub 5 points 4 weeks ago

I use this already. Works great. Thanks for your hard work on this.

[-] alam@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Glad it helped!

[-] CtrlAltDyeet@anarchist.nexus 4 points 4 weeks ago

Thank you so much for your amazing work! I had to sign something a few weeks ago on a new PC and Bento is so easy

[-] alam@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

Thank you!

[-] Lemminary@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

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

[-] alam@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Thanks!

[-] kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

The logo: all i see us the head between open legs

[-] alam@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

It's supposed to look like a B 🥀

[-] kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

Too bad, now you are cursed with this knowledge

[-] flightyhobler@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

I've used Stirling pdf in the past. How does it compare?

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago

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.

[-] Limeade3425@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 weeks ago

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.

[-] Codename_goose@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago

a small question, if I may.

When I worked in technical support for a popular phone brand a lifetime ago, I had to make clickable “navigatable” pdfs. Create empty objects around apps and settings so that technicians could help clients without having access to their phone or device with current OS update. I would update mine and take screen shots then convert those with clickable objects to switch to the correct page to act as a sudo phone/tablet. Is this something that BentoPDF can do?

[-] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

I'm stoked to give it a try. I left my last PDF application because they injected AI into it. So I've been shopping around a little. I've been using Okular, but it's really limited, even as a viewer. This looks awesome. Nicely done! I hope you keep at it!

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[-] DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago

love it been hosting mine for close to a month now

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[-] USSEthernet@startrek.website 1 points 3 weeks ago

So just got this up and running yesterday and today my wife used it for the first time. She did what she needed to do, but we may have come across a bug. I don't know. She had to take a 72 page PDF and break it out into multiple smaller PDFs. While she was doing that, multiple pages in the preview window would keep going blank/white. Not sure if you're aware of something like that, if not I can try to reproduce and grab logs and post them on github.

[-] stephaaaaan@feddit.org 1 points 4 weeks ago

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 :)

[-] alam@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

That's interesting. I will see what I can do

[-] Lowlands@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

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!

[-] alam@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

wow, that's great to know

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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
113 points (99.1% liked)

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