A Privacy-First Toolkit for Working with PDFs

Working with PDFs can be a headache, especially when you need to process user-uploaded files. Most solutions either require sending data to external services or come with heavy, complex libraries. What if you could handle PDF tasks entirely in the browser, with no data ever leaving the user's device?

That's the premise behind BentoPDF, a new open-source toolkit that puts privacy and simplicity first. It's a collection of vanilla JavaScript tools designed for common PDF operations, running completely client-side.

What It Does

BentoPDF provides a set of modular tools for working with PDF files directly in the browser. The current toolkit includes functionality for splitting PDFs into individual pages and converting PDF pages to images. Everything happens locally using PDF.js under the hood, meaning your users' documents never touch a server unless you explicitly send them there.

Why It's Cool

The privacy-first approach is what really sets BentoPDF apart. Since all processing happens in the browser, you can build features that handle sensitive documents without worrying about data privacy regulations or server costs. This is perfect for applications dealing with legal documents, medical records, or any scenario where users might be hesitant to upload files.

The implementation is clean and focused. Each tool is self-contained, so you only load what you need. The API is straightforward – you provide a PDF file, and the toolkit gives you back the processed results as blobs or files you can work with directly.

Think about use cases like letting users preview PDF thumbnails, extracting specific pages before upload, or building client-side document processing pipelines. BentoPDF makes these scenarios much simpler to implement without the overhead of full PDF libraries or the privacy concerns of cloud services.

How to Try It

You can check out the live demo to see BentoPDF in action right away. The demo shows both the splitting and conversion features working with sample PDFs.

To use it in your own project, install via npm:

npm install bentopdf

Or clone the repository and explore the source:

git clone https://github.com/alam00000/bentopdf

The project includes clear examples for each tool. For basic PDF splitting, you can start with something like:

import { BentoPdfSplitter } from 'bentopdf';

// Split a PDF file into individual pages
const splitter = new BentoPdfSplitter(pdfFile);
const pages = await splitter.split();

Final Thoughts

BentoPDF fills a nice niche in the web development ecosystem. It's not trying to be a full-featured PDF manipulation suite, but rather a focused set of tools for common tasks where privacy matters. The vanilla JavaScript approach means it plays well with any framework, and the client-side processing eliminates a whole category of privacy and infrastructure concerns.

For developers building applications that need lightweight PDF handling without external dependencies, this is definitely worth checking out. It's one of those tools that solves a specific problem well, without overcomplicating things.

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