File: README.md Copy Chapter

BentoPDF

BentoPDF is a powerful, privacy-first, client-side PDF toolkit that is self hostable and allows you to manipulate, edit, merge, and process PDF files directly in your browser. No server-side processing is required, ensuring your files remain secure and private.

Table of Contents Copy Chapter

• Join Us on Discord
• Documentation
• Licensing
• Stargazers over time
• Thank You to Our Sponsors
• Why BentoPDF?
• Features / Tools Supported
  • Organize & Manage PDFs
  • Edit & Modify PDFs
  • Convert to PDF
  • Convert from PDF
  • Secure & Optimize PDFs
• Translations
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Quick Start
  • Static Hosting
  • Self-Hosting Locally
  • Docker Compose / Podman Compose
  • Podman Quadlet
  • Self-Hosted Build (Simple Mode)
  • Commercial Build
  • Custom Branding
  • Disabling Specific Tools
  • Disabling the GitHub Star Counter
  • WASM Configuration
  • Air-Gapped / Offline Deployment
  • Security Features
  • Digital Signature CORS Proxy
  • Version Management
  • Development Setup
• Tech Stack & Background
• Roadmap
• Contributing
• Special Thanks

📢 Join Us on Discord Copy Chapter

Have questions, feature requests, or want to chat with the community? Join our Discord server!

📚 Documentation Copy Chapter

Visit our Documentation for:

• Getting Started guide
• Tools Reference (50+ tools)
• Self-Hosting guides (Docker, Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare, AWS, Hostinger, Nginx, Apache)
• Contributing guide
• Commercial License details

📜 Licensing Copy Chapter

BentoPDF is dual-licensed to fit your needs:

One-time purchase · Unlimited devices & users · Lifetime updates · No AGPL obligations

📖 For more details, see our Licensing Page

AGPL Components (Pre-configured via CDN) Copy Section

BentoPDF does not bundle AGPL-licensed processing libraries in its source code, but pre-configures CDN URLs so all features work out of the box with zero setup:

[!TIP]
Zero-config by default. WASM modules are loaded at runtime from jsDelivr CDN. No manual configuration is needed. For custom deployments (air-gapped, self-hosted), see WASM Configuration below.

⭐ Stargazers over time Copy Chapter

💖 Thank You to Our Sponsors Copy Chapter

We're incredibly grateful to all our sponsors and supporters who help keep BentoPDF free and open source!

✨ Why BentoPDF? Copy Chapter

• Privacy First: All processing happens in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server, guaranteeing 100% privacy.
• No Limits: Manipulate as many files as you want, as often you want. There are no restrictions or upload limits.
• High Performance: Built with modern web technologies, BentoPDF is fast and efficient, handling even large PDF files with ease.
• Completely Free: BentoPDF is a free and open-source tool for everyone.

🛠️ Features / Tools Supported Copy Chapter

BentoPDF offers a comprehensive suite of tools to handle all your PDF needs.

Organize & Manage PDFs Copy Section

Edit & Modify PDFs Copy Section

Automate Copy Section

Convert to PDF Copy Section

Convert from PDF Copy Section

Secure & Optimize PDFs Copy Section

🌍 Translations Copy Chapter

BentoPDF is available in multiple languages:

Want to help translate BentoPDF into your language? Check out our Translation Guide!

🚀 Getting Started Copy Chapter

You can run BentoPDF locally for development or personal use.

Prerequisites Copy Section

• Node.js (v18 or higher recommended)
• npm (or yarn/pnpm)
• Docker & Docker Compose (for containerized setup)

🚀 Quick Start Copy Section

Run BentoPDF instantly from GitHub Container Registry (Recommended):

docker run -p 3000:8080 ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest

Open your browser at: http://localhost:3000

[!TIP]
BentoPDF ships in two builds:

• Self-Hosted build — ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest. Every PDF tool the public site has, without the BentoPDF marketing (no hero, FAQ, testimonials, footer). Use this for internal/team/organization deployments. It is not a feature-reduced lite version.
• Commercial build — ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf:latest. The full marketing site, used by bentopdf.com itself and by commercial license holders running public-facing deployments. Includes hero, FAQ, testimonials, and footer.

If in doubt: pull the Self Hosted build.

Alternative: Using Docker Hub or Podman

Docker Hub:

docker run -p 3000:8080 bentopdfteam/bentopdf-simple:latest

Podman (GHCR):

podman run -p 3000:8080 ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest

Podman (Docker Hub):

podman run -p 3000:8080 docker.io/bentopdfteam/bentopdf-simple:latest

[!NOTE]
All docker commands in this documentation work with Podman by replacing docker with podman.

Static Hosting using Netlify, Vercel, and GitHub Pages Copy Section

It is very straightforward to host your own instance of BentoPDF using a static web page hosting service. Plus, services such as Netlify, Vercel, and GitHub Pages all offer a free tier for getting started. See Static Hosting for details.

🏠 Self-Hosting Locally Copy Section

Since BentoPDF is fully client-side, all processing happens in the user's browser and no server-side processing is required. This means you can host BentoPDF as simple static files on any web server or hosting platform.

[!IMPORTANT]
Office file conversion uses LibreOffice WASM, which requires SharedArrayBuffer. That means the app must be both cross-origin isolated and served from a secure context. http://localhost works for local testing, but http://192.168.x.x or other LAN IPs usually require HTTPS even if the server already sends the correct COOP/COEP headers.

Download from Releases (Recommended):

The easiest way to self-host is to download the pre-built distribution file from our GitHub releases. Each release includes a dist-{version}.zip file that contains all necessary files for self-hosting.

1. Go to BentoPDF Releases
2. Download the latest dist-{version}.zip file
3. Extract the zip file
4. Serve the extracted folder with your preferred web server

Serve the extracted folder (requires Node.js):

# Navigate to the extracted folder
cd dist-1.7.3  # Replace with your version

# Start a local server
npx http-server -c-1

The website will be accessible at: http://localhost:8080/

[!NOTE]
The -c-1 flag disables caching for development.

Build from Source (Advanced):

If you prefer to build from source:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/alam00000/bentopdf.git
cd bentopdf

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

# Package the distribution for hosting (optional)
npm run package

# Preview the build locally
npm run preview

# The website will be accessible at: http://localhost:4173/

Compression Modes:

BentoPDF supports different compression modes for optimized builds:

# Gzip only (smallest Docker image size)
npm run build:gzip
docker build --build-arg COMPRESSION_MODE=g -t bentopdf:gzip .

# Brotli only (best compression ratio)
npm run build:brotli
docker build --build-arg COMPRESSION_MODE=b -t bentopdf:brotli .

# No compression (fastest build time)
npm run build:original
docker build --build-arg COMPRESSION_MODE=o -t bentopdf:original .

# All formats (default, maximum browser compatibility)
npm run build:all
docker build --build-arg COMPRESSION_MODE=all -t bentopdf:all .

CDN Optimization:

BentoPDF can use jsDelivr CDN to serve large WASM files (LibreOffice, Ghostscript, PyMuPDF) for improved performance and reduced bandwidth costs:

# Production build with CDN (Recommended)
VITE_USE_CDN=true npm run build

# Standard build with local files only
npm run build

How it works:

• When VITE_USE_CDN=true: Browser loads WASM files from jsDelivr CDN (fast, global delivery)
• Local files are always included as automatic fallback
• If CDN fails then it falls back to local files

⚙️ WASM Configuration

Advanced PDF features (PyMuPDF, Ghostscript, CoherentPDF) are pre-configured to load from jsDelivr CDN via environment variables. This means all features work out of the box — no manual setup needed.

The default URLs are set in .env.production:

VITE_WASM_PYMUPDF_URL=https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@bentopdf/[email protected]/
VITE_WASM_GS_URL=https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@bentopdf/[email protected]/assets/
VITE_WASM_CPDF_URL=https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/
VITE_TESSERACT_WORKER_URL=
VITE_TESSERACT_CORE_URL=
VITE_TESSERACT_LANG_URL=
VITE_TESSERACT_AVAILABLE_LANGUAGES=
VITE_OCR_FONT_BASE_URL=

To override via Docker build args:

docker build \
  --build-arg VITE_WASM_PYMUPDF_URL=https://your-server.com/pymupdf/ \
  --build-arg VITE_WASM_GS_URL=https://your-server.com/gs/ \
  --build-arg VITE_WASM_CPDF_URL=https://your-server.com/cpdf/ \
  --build-arg VITE_TESSERACT_WORKER_URL=https://your-server.com/ocr/worker.min.js \
  --build-arg VITE_TESSERACT_CORE_URL=https://your-server.com/ocr/core \
  --build-arg VITE_TESSERACT_LANG_URL=https://your-server.com/ocr/lang-data \
  --build-arg VITE_TESSERACT_AVAILABLE_LANGUAGES=eng,deu \
  --build-arg VITE_OCR_FONT_BASE_URL=https://your-server.com/ocr/fonts \
  -t bentopdf .

To disable a module (require manual user config via Advanced Settings), set its variable to an empty string.

For OCR, either leave all VITE_TESSERACT_* variables empty and use the default online assets, or set the worker/core/lang URLs together for self-hosted/offline OCR. If your self-hosted bundle only includes a subset such as eng,deu, also set VITE_TESSERACT_AVAILABLE_LANGUAGES=eng,deu so the UI only shows bundled languages and OCR fails with a descriptive message for unsupported ones. For fully offline searchable-PDF output, also set VITE_OCR_FONT_BASE_URL to the internal directory that serves the bundled OCR text-layer fonts.

Users can also override these defaults per-browser via Advanced Settings in the UI — user overrides take priority over the environment defaults.

[!IMPORTANT]
These URLs are baked into the JavaScript at build time. The WASM files themselves are downloaded by the user's browser at runtime — Docker does not download them during the build.

🔒 Air-Gapped / Offline Deployment

For networks with no internet access (government, healthcare, financial, etc.), you need to prepare everything on a machine with internet, then transfer the bundle into the isolated network.

Automated Script (Recommended)

The included prepare-airgap.sh script automates the entire process — downloading WASM packages, building the Docker image, exporting everything into a self-contained bundle with a setup script.

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

# Show supported OCR language codes (for --ocr-languages)
bash scripts/prepare-airgap.sh --list-ocr-languages

# Search OCR language codes by name or abbreviation
bash scripts/prepare-airgap.sh --search-ocr-language german

# Interactive mode — prompts for all options
bash scripts/prepare-airgap.sh

# Or fully automated
bash scripts/prepare-airgap.sh --wasm-base-url https://internal.example.com/wasm

This produces a bundle directory containing:

bentopdf-airgap-bundle/
  bentopdf.tar              # Docker image
  *.tgz                     # WASM packages (PyMuPDF, Ghostscript, CoherentPDF, Tesseract)
  tesseract-langdata/       # OCR traineddata files
  ocr-fonts/                # OCR text-layer font files
  setup.sh                  # Setup script for the air-gapped side

Transfer the bundle into the air-gapped network via USB, internal artifact repo, or approved method. Then run the included setup script:

cd bentopdf-airgap-bundle
bash setup.sh

The setup script loads the Docker image, extracts WASM files, and optionally starts the container.

Script options

The interactive prompt also accepts list to print the full supported Tesseract code list and search <term> to find matches such as search german or search chi.

[!IMPORTANT]
WASM files must be served from the same origin as the BentoPDF app. Web Workers use importScripts() which cannot load scripts cross-origin. For example, if BentoPDF runs at https://internal.example.com, the WASM base URL should also be https://internal.example.com/wasm.

Manual Steps

If you prefer to do it manually without the script

Step 1: Download the WASM and OCR packages (on a machine with internet)

npm pack @bentopdf/[email protected]
npm pack @bentopdf/gs-wasm
npm pack coherentpdf
npm pack [email protected]
npm pack [email protected]
mkdir -p tesseract-langdata
curl -fsSL https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@tesseract.js-data/eng/4.0.0_best_int/eng.traineddata.gz -o tesseract-langdata/eng.traineddata.gz
mkdir -p ocr-fonts
curl -fsSL https://raw.githack.com/googlefonts/noto-fonts/main/hinted/ttf/NotoSans/NotoSans-Regular.ttf -o ocr-fonts/NotoSans-Regular.ttf

Step 2: Build the Docker image with internal URLs

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

docker build \
  --build-arg VITE_WASM_PYMUPDF_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/pymupdf/ \
  --build-arg VITE_WASM_GS_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/gs/ \
  --build-arg VITE_WASM_CPDF_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/cpdf/ \
  --build-arg VITE_TESSERACT_WORKER_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/worker.min.js \
  --build-arg VITE_TESSERACT_CORE_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/core \
  --build-arg VITE_TESSERACT_LANG_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/lang-data \
  --build-arg VITE_OCR_FONT_BASE_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/fonts \
  -t bentopdf .

Step 3: Export the Docker image

docker save bentopdf -o bentopdf.tar

Step 4: Transfer into the air-gapped network

Copy these files via USB drive, internal artifact repository, or approved transfer method:

• bentopdf.tar — the Docker image
• bentopdf-pymupdf-wasm-0.11.14.tgz — PyMuPDF WASM package
• bentopdf-gs-wasm-*.tgz — Ghostscript WASM package
• coherentpdf-*.tgz — CoherentPDF WASM package
• tesseract.js-7.0.0.tgz — Tesseract worker package
• tesseract.js-core-7.0.0.tgz — Tesseract core runtime package
• tesseract-langdata/ — OCR traineddata files
• ocr-fonts/ — OCR text-layer font files

Step 5: Set up inside the air-gapped network

# Load the Docker image
docker load -i bentopdf.tar

# Extract the WASM packages
mkdir -p ./wasm/pymupdf ./wasm/gs ./wasm/cpdf ./wasm/ocr/core ./wasm/ocr/lang-data ./wasm/ocr/fonts
tar xzf bentopdf-pymupdf-wasm-0.11.14.tgz -C ./wasm/pymupdf --strip-components=1
tar xzf bentopdf-gs-wasm-*.tgz -C ./wasm/gs --strip-components=1
tar xzf coherentpdf-*.tgz -C ./wasm/cpdf --strip-components=1
TEMP_TESS=$(mktemp -d)
tar xzf tesseract.js-7.0.0.tgz -C "$TEMP_TESS"
cp "$TEMP_TESS/package/dist/worker.min.js" ./wasm/ocr/worker.min.js
rm -rf "$TEMP_TESS"
tar xzf tesseract.js-core-7.0.0.tgz -C ./wasm/ocr/core --strip-components=1
cp ./tesseract-langdata/*.traineddata.gz ./wasm/ocr/lang-data/
cp ./ocr-fonts/* ./wasm/ocr/fonts/

# Run BentoPDF
docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --restart unless-stopped bentopdf

Make sure the files are accessible at the URLs you configured in Step 2, including .../ocr/worker.min.js, .../ocr/core, .../ocr/lang-data, and .../ocr/fonts.

[!NOTE]
If you're building from source instead of Docker, set the variables in .env.production before running npm run build:

bash Copy

VITE_WASM_PYMUPDF_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/pymupdf/
VITE_WASM_GS_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/gs/
VITE_WASM_CPDF_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/cpdf/
VITE_TESSERACT_WORKER_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/worker.min.js
VITE_TESSERACT_CORE_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/core
VITE_TESSERACT_LANG_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/lang-data
VITE_OCR_FONT_BASE_URL=https://internal-server.example.com/wasm/ocr/fonts

Subdirectory Hosting:

BentoPDF can also be hosted from a subdirectory (e.g., example.com/tools/bentopdf/):

# Example:
# 1. Build the app with the specific BASE_URL. BASE_URL must have a trailing and leading slash. The BASE_URL can be any url of your choice. Here we are using /tools/bentopdf/ as an example.

BASE_URL=/tools/bentopdf/ npm run build

# 2. Create the nested directory structure inside serve-test (or any folder of your choice for local testing. In case of production, create the nested directory structure inside the root directory)
mkdir -p serve-test/tools/bentopdf

# 3. Copy all files from the 'dist' folder into that nested directory
cp -r dist/* serve-test/tools/bentopdf/

# 4. Serve the 'serve-test' folder
npx serve serve-test

The website can be accessible at: http://localhost:3000/tools/bentopdf/

The npm run package command creates a dist-{version}.zip file that you can use for self-hosting.

Docker Subdirectory Deployment:

BentoPDF's Docker image also supports the BASE_URL build argument for subdirectory deployments:

# Build for subdirectory deployment
docker build --build-arg BASE_URL=/bentopdf/ -t bentopdf .

# Run the container
docker run -p 3000:8080 bentopdf

# The app will be accessible at http://localhost:3000/bentopdf/

Default Language:

Set the default UI language at build time. Users can still switch languages — this only changes the initial default. Supported: en, ar, be, fr, de, es, zh, zh-TW, vi, tr, id, it, pt, nl, da.

docker build --build-arg VITE_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=fr -t bentopdf .

Combined with Simple Mode:

# Build with both BASE_URL and SIMPLE_MODE
docker build \
  --build-arg BASE_URL=/tools/pdf/ \
  --build-arg SIMPLE_MODE=true \
  -t bentopdf-simple .

docker run -p 3000:8080 bentopdf-simple

[!IMPORTANT]

• Always include trailing slashes in BASE_URL (e.g., /bentopdf/ not /bentopdf)
• The default value is / for root deployment

🚀 Run with Docker Compose / Podman Compose (Recommended) Copy Section

For a more robust setup with auto-restart capabilities:

1. Download the repo and create a docker-compose.yml file or use the one given in repo:

services:
  bentopdf:
    image: ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest # Self-Hosted build (recommended)
    # image: bentopdfteam/bentopdf-simple:latest     # Self-Hosted build (Docker Hub)
    # image: ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf:latest       # Commercial build (bentopdf.com / commercial license holders)
    container_name: bentopdf
    ports:
      - '3000:8080'
    restart: unless-stopped

2. Start the application:

# Docker Compose
docker-compose up -d

# Podman Compose
podman-compose up -d

The application will be available at http://localhost:3000.

🐧 Podman Quadlet (Systemd Integration) Copy Section

For Linux production deployments, you can run BentoPDF as a systemd service using Podman Quadlet.

Create ~/.config/containers/systemd/bentopdf.container:

[Unit]
Description=BentoPDF - Privacy-first PDF toolkit
After=network-online.target

[Container]
Image=ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest
ContainerName=bentopdf
PublishPort=3000:8080
AutoUpdate=registry

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Then enable and start:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now bentopdf

For detailed Quadlet configuration, see Self-Hosting Docker Guide.

🏢 Self-Hosted build (Simple Mode) Copy Section

The Self-Hosted build (the bentopdf-simple image, also called Simple Mode) is functionally identical to the Commercial build. Every PDF tool is present and behaves the same. It just hides the marketing that only makes sense on bentopdf.com itself or on a commercial public-facing deployment. It is not a feature reduced or "lite" version.

What the Self-Hosted build hides (cosmetic only, no PDF features are removed):

• Navigation bar, hero section, features section, FAQ, testimonials, footer
• Updates page title to "PDF Tools"

What the Self-Hosted build keeps (everything that actually does PDF work):

• All PDF tools (merge, split, edit, sign, OCR, Office conversion, every other tool)
• Custom branding support, all build-time and runtime config

The Commercial build (ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf:latest) is what powers bentopdf.com itself and is used by commercial license holders running public facing deployments. It adds the hero, FAQ, testimonials, and footer that wouldn't make sense on an internal tool.

If you're self-hosting BentoPDF for your team, organization, or as an internal tool, pull ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest. For more details, see SIMPLE_MODE.md.

🏬 Commercial Build Copy Section

The Commercial build (the bentopdf image. Note: no -simple suffix) is what powers bentopdf.com itself. It includes the full marketing site (hero, features, FAQ, testimonials, footer) on top of every PDF tool. Use this build when you're running BentoPDF as a public-facing PDF service under your own brand. For example:

• You're deploying BentoPDF as a hosted SaaS for end-users (with your own domain and branding)
• You want the landing-page experience (marketing sections + tools), not just the tool surface
• You're a commercial license holder embedding BentoPDF into a commercial product or workflow

Run it as-is (carries BentoPDF branding by default. Useful to evaluate what the build looks like):

docker run -p 3000:8080 ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf:latest

Build with your own brand (the typical commercial path — replace the BentoPDF logo, name, and footer):

docker build \
  --build-arg VITE_BRAND_NAME="AcmePDF" \
  --build-arg VITE_BRAND_LOGO="images/acme-logo.svg" \
  --build-arg VITE_FOOTER_TEXT="© 2026 Acme Corp. All rights reserved." \
  -t acmepdf .

docker run -p 3000:8080 acmepdf

Or set the same variables when building from source — see Custom Branding below for the full list of options.

Combine with other build-time flags (BASE_URL, VITE_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE, DISABLE_TOOLS, VITE_USE_CDN, WASM URL overrides for air-gapped use, etc.) — every option that works on the Self-Hosted build also works here.

[!IMPORTANT]
Licensing: Running the Commercial build is allowed under both license options BentoPDF ships under:

• AGPL-3.0 (free): allowed if your deployment publishes its full source code under AGPL — this includes any branding modifications, custom configuration, and any code you build on top of it.
• Commercial license ($79 lifetime): required for closed-source / proprietary deployments — e.g., a private SaaS where you don't open-source your branding fork or surrounding business logic.

See the Licensing page for the full comparison.

🎨 Custom Branding Copy Section

Replace the default BentoPDF logo, name, and footer text with your own. Branding is configured via environment variables at build time and works across all deployment methods (Docker, static hosting, air-gapped VMs).

Docker:

docker build \
  --build-arg VITE_BRAND_NAME="AcmePDF" \
  --build-arg VITE_BRAND_LOGO="images/acme-logo.svg" \
  --build-arg VITE_FOOTER_TEXT="© 2026 Acme Corp. Internal use only." \
  -t acmepdf .

Building from source:

Place your logo in the public/ folder, then build:

VITE_BRAND_NAME="AcmePDF" \
VITE_BRAND_LOGO="images/acme-logo.svg" \
VITE_FOOTER_TEXT="© 2026 Acme Corp. Internal use only." \
npm run build

Or set the values in .env.production before building.

[!TIP]
Branding works in both full mode and Simple Mode. You can combine it with other build-time options like SIMPLE_MODE, BASE_URL, and VITE_DEFAULT_LANGUAGE.

🚫 Disabling Specific Tools Copy Section

Hide tools from the UI for compliance or security requirements. Disabled tools are removed from the homepage, search, keyboard shortcuts, workflow builder, and direct URL access.

Tool IDs are the page URL without .html — open any tool and look at the URL (e.g., edit-pdf, sign-pdf, encrypt-pdf).

Build-time (baked into the bundle):

docker build --build-arg DISABLE_TOOLS="edit-pdf,sign-pdf,encrypt-pdf" -t bentopdf .

Runtime (no rebuild — mount a config.json):

{
  "disabledTools": ["edit-pdf", "sign-pdf", "encrypt-pdf"]
}

docker run -d -p 3000:8080 \
  -v ./config.json:/usr/share/nginx/html/config.json:ro \
  ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest

Both methods can be combined — the lists are merged. For the full list of tool IDs, see the self-hosting docs.

You can also disable specific features inside the PDF Editor (e.g., redaction, forms) without disabling the entire editor. Add editorDisabledCategories to your config.json:

{
  "editorDisabledCategories": ["redaction"]
}

For the full list of editor categories, see the self-hosting docs.

🔕 Disabling the GitHub Star Counter Copy Section

The navbar shows a live GitHub star count, fetched from api.github.com on page load. The only external request that isn't serving a PDF feature. Self-hosters who want zero non-essential network calls can disable it at build time. This removes the fetch code from the bundle entirely and drops api.github.com from the Content-Security-Policy.

Simple Mode builds (bentopdf-simple) always skip the star counter — this flag is only needed on the Commercial build or custom full builds.

Docker:

docker build --build-arg DISABLE_GITHUB_STARS=true -t bentopdf .

Building from source:

DISABLE_GITHUB_STARS=true npm run build

🔒 Security Features Copy Section

BentoPDF runs as a non-root user using nginx-unprivileged for enhanced security:

• Non-Root Execution: Container runs with minimal privileges using nginx-unprivileged
• Port 8080: Uses high port number to avoid requiring root privileges (configurable via PORT env var)
• Security Best Practices: Follows Principle of Least Privilege

Basic Usage

docker build -t bentopdf .
docker run -p 8080:8080 bentopdf

Custom Port

By default, BentoPDF listens on port 8080 inside the container. To change this, set the PORT environment variable:

docker run -p 3000:9090 -e PORT=9090 ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest

Custom User ID (PUID/PGID)

For environments that require running as a specific non-root user (e.g., NAS devices, Kubernetes with security contexts), use the non-root Dockerfile:

# Build the non-root image
docker build -f Dockerfile.nonroot -t bentopdf-nonroot .

# Run with custom UID/GID
docker run -d -p 3000:8080 -e PUID=1000 -e PGID=1000 bentopdf-nonroot

[!NOTE]
The standard Dockerfile uses nginx-unprivileged (UID 101) and is recommended for most deployments. Use Dockerfile.nonroot only when you need a specific UID/GID.

For detailed security configuration, see SECURITY.md.

Digital Signature CORS Proxy (Required) Copy Section

The Digital Signature tool uses a signing library that may need to fetch certificate chain data from certificate authority providers. Since many certificate servers don't include CORS headers (and often serve over HTTP, which is blocked by browsers on HTTPS sites), a proxy is required for this feature to work.

When is the proxy needed?

• Only when using the Digital Signature tool
• Only if your certificate requires fetching issuer certificates from external URLs
• Self-signed certificates typically don't need this

Deploying the CORS Proxy (Cloudflare Workers):

1. Navigate to the cloudflare directory:

   bash Copy

   cd cloudflare

2. Login to Cloudflare (if not already):

   bash Copy

   npx wrangler login

3. Update allowed origins — open cors-proxy-worker.js and change ALLOWED_ORIGINS to your domain:

   js Copy

   const ALLOWED_ORIGINS = [
     'https://your-domain.com',
     'https://www.your-domain.com',
   ];

   [!IMPORTANT]
   Without this step, the proxy will reject all requests from your site with a 403 error. The default only allows bentopdf.com.

4. Deploy the worker:

   bash Copy

   npx wrangler deploy

5. Note your worker URL (e.g., https://bentopdf-cors-proxy.your-subdomain.workers.dev)

6. Set the environment variable when building:

   bash Copy

   VITE_CORS_PROXY_URL=https://your-worker-url.workers.dev npm run build

   Or with Docker:

   bash Copy

   export VITE_CORS_PROXY_URL="https://your-worker-url.workers.dev"
   DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build \
    --secret id=VITE_CORS_PROXY_URL,env=VITE_CORS_PROXY_URL \
    -t your-bentopdf .

Production Security Features

The CORS proxy includes several security measures:

Enabling Rate Limiting (Recommended)

Rate limiting requires Cloudflare KV storage:

cd cloudflare

# Create KV namespace
npx wrangler kv namespace create "RATE_LIMIT_KV"

# Copy the returned ID and add to wrangler.toml:
# [[kv_namespaces]]
# binding = "RATE_LIMIT_KV"
# id = "YOUR_ID_HERE"

# Redeploy
npx wrangler deploy

Free tier limits: 100,000 reads/day, 1,000 writes/day (~300-500 signatures/day)

HMAC Signature Verification (Optional)

[!WARNING]
Client-side secrets can be extracted from bundled JavaScript. For production deployments with sensitive requirements, use your own backend server to proxy requests instead of embedding secrets in frontend code.

BentoPDF uses client-side HMAC as a deterrent against casual abuse, but accepts this tradeoff due to its fully client-side architecture. To enable:

# Generate a secret
openssl rand -hex 32

# Set on Cloudflare Worker
npx wrangler secret put PROXY_SECRET

# Set in build environment
VITE_CORS_PROXY_SECRET=your-secret npm run build

# Or with Docker (optional; URL secret also shown for completeness)
export VITE_CORS_PROXY_URL="https://your-worker-url.workers.dev"
export VITE_CORS_PROXY_SECRET="your-secret"
DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build \
  --secret id=VITE_CORS_PROXY_URL,env=VITE_CORS_PROXY_URL \
  --secret id=VITE_CORS_PROXY_SECRET,env=VITE_CORS_PROXY_SECRET \
  -t your-bentopdf .

📦 Version Management Copy Section

BentoPDF publishes two image variants. Both ship the same PDF tools. The difference is purely whether the bentopdf.com marketing is included.

Self-Hosted build — recommended for internal/team/organization deployments:

• Latest: ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest
• Specific Version: ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:1.0.0
• Docker Hub: bentopdfteam/bentopdf-simple:latest

Commercial build — used by bentopdf.com itself and by commercial license holders running public-facing deployments:

• Latest: ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf:latest
• Specific Version: ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf:1.0.0
• Docker Hub: bentopdfteam/bentopdf:latest

Quick Release

# Release a patch version (0.0.1 → 0.0.2)
npm run release

# Release a minor version (0.0.1 → 0.1.0)
npm run release:minor

# Release a major version (0.0.1 → 1.0.0)
npm run release:major

For detailed release instructions, see RELEASE.md.

🚀 Development Setup Copy Section

Option 1: Run with npm

1. Clone the Repository:

   bash Copy

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

2. Install Dependencies:

   bash Copy

   npm install

3. Run the Development Server:

   bash Copy

   npm run dev

   The application will be available at http://localhost:5173.

   The dev server binds to localhost only by default. To expose it on your LAN (e.g. for mobile device testing), set VITE_DEV_HOST=0.0.0.0 npm run dev. The built-in CORS proxy at /cors-proxy?url= restricts targets to a known host allowlist; to permit additional hosts in development, set VITE_DEV_CORS_PROXY_EXTRA_HOSTS="host1.example.com,host2.example.com".

Option 2: Build and Run with Docker Compose

1. Clone the Repository:

   bash Copy

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

2. Run with Docker Compose:

   bash Copy

   docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d

   The application will be available at http://localhost:3000.

   [!NOTE]
   After making any local changes to the code, rebuild the Docker image using:

   bash Copy

   docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build -d

   This ensures your latest changes are applied inside the container.

🛠️ Tech Stack & Background Copy Chapter

BentoPDF was originally built using HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript. As the project grew, it was migrated to a modern stack for better maintainability and scalability:

• Vite: A fast build tool for modern web development.
• TypeScript: For type safety and an improved developer experience.
• Tailwind CSS: For rapid and consistent UI development.

[!NOTE]
Some parts of the codebase still use legacy structures from the original implementation. Contributors should expect gradual updates as testing and refactoring continue.

🗺️ Roadmap Copy Chapter

Planned Features: Copy Section

• HTML to PDF: Convert HTML files or web pages into PDF documents.
• Markdown to PDF: Enhanced support for converting .md files to PDF.
• Convert to PDF/A: Convert PDFs to the PDF/A archival format.
• Edit PDF Content: Directly edit text and other content within your PDF.
• PDF to Office: Converts PDF files into editable Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats.
• Office to PDF: Converts Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents into optimized PDFs.

Contributions and discussions on the roadmap are welcome! Join the conversation via Discord.

🤝 Contributing Copy Chapter

We welcome contributions from the community! Here's how you can get started:

1. Fork the repository and create your branch from main.
2. Follow the Getting Started steps to set up your local environment.
3. Make your changes and commit them with a clear message.
4. Open a Pull Request and describe the changes you've made.

Have an idea for a new tool or an improvement? Open an issue to discuss it first.

📖 Contributing to Documentation Copy Section

Our documentation is built with VitePress. Here's how to contribute:

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start docs dev server
npm run docs:dev

# Build docs for production
npm run docs:build

# Preview the built docs
npm run docs:preview

Documentation files are in the docs/ folder:

• docs/index.md - Home page
• docs/getting-started.md - Getting started guide
• docs/tools/ - Tools reference
• docs/self-hosting/ - Self-hosting guides (Docker, Vercel, Netlify, Hostinger, etc.)
• docs/contributing.md - Contributing guide
• docs/licensing.md - Commercial license info

Special Thanks Copy Chapter

BentoPDF wouldn't be possible without the amazing open-source tools and libraries that power it. We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the creators and maintainers of:

Bundled Libraries:

• PDFLib.js – For enabling powerful client-side PDF manipulation.
• PDF.js – For the robust PDF rendering engine in the browser.
• PDFKit – For creating and editing PDFs with ease.
• EmbedPDF – For seamless PDF editing in pure JS.
• Cropper.js – For intuitive image cropping functionality.
• Vite – For lightning-fast development and build tooling.
• Tailwind CSS – For rapid, flexible, and beautiful UI styling.
• qpdf and qpdf-wasm – For inspecting, repairing, and transforming PDF files.
• LibreOffice – For powerful document conversion capabilities.
• wasm-vips – For advanced TIFF encoding with compression (LZW, Deflate, CCITT Group 4).
• pixelmatch – For fast, accurate image comparison and diff detection.
• diff – For computing text differences.
• microdiff – For lightweight, fast object diffing.

AGPL Libraries (Pre-configured via CDN):

• CoherentPDF (cpdf) – For content-preserving PDF operations. (AGPL-3.0)
• PyMuPDF – For high-performance PDF manipulation and data extraction. (AGPL-3.0)
• Ghostscript (GhostPDL) – For PDF/A conversion and font outlining. (AGPL-3.0)

[!NOTE]
AGPL-licensed libraries are not bundled in BentoPDF's source code. They are loaded at runtime from CDN (pre-configured) and can be overridden via environment variables or Advanced Settings.

Your work inspires and empowers developers everywhere. Thank you for making open-source amazing!

File: docs/index.md Copy Chapter

https://vitepress.dev/reference/default-theme-home-page

layout: home

hero:
name: 'BentoPDF'
text: 'Free, Open-Source PDF Tools'
tagline: Process PDFs entirely in your browser. No uploads. No servers. Complete privacy.
actions:
- theme: brand
text: Get Started
link: /getting-started
- theme: alt
text: View Tools
link: /tools/
- theme: alt
text: Self-Host
link: /self-hosting/
- theme: alt
text: Commercial License
link: /licensing

features:

• icon: 🔒
  title: 100% Private
  details: Your files never leave your device. All processing happens locally in your browser using WebAssembly.

• icon: ⚡
  title: Fast & Free
  details: No sign-ups, no limits, no watermarks. Process unlimited PDFs for free, forever.

• icon: 🛠️
  title: 50+ Tools
  details: Convert, edit, merge, split, compress, sign, OCR, and more. Everything you need in one place.

• icon: 🌐
  title: Self-Hostable
  details: Deploy on your own infrastructure. Docker, Vercel, Netlify, AWS, or fully air-gapped environments with self-hosted OCR workers, language data, and text-layer fonts.

Offline OCR Copy Chapter

If you self-host BentoPDF in an air-gapped or offline environment, OCR needs more than the Tesseract worker and traineddata files. Searchable PDF output also needs the OCR text-layer fonts to be served internally.
See Self-Hosting for the full setup, including VITE_OCR_FONT_BASE_URL, the bundled ocr-fonts/ directory, and the updated air-gap workflow.

File: docs/getting-started.md Copy Chapter

Getting Started

Welcome to BentoPDF! This guide will help you get up and running quickly.

What is BentoPDF? Copy Chapter

BentoPDF is a free, open-source, privacy-first PDF toolkit that runs entirely in your browser. Your files never leave your device—all processing happens locally using WebAssembly (WASM) technology.

Quick Start Copy Chapter

Option 1: Use the Hosted Version Copy Section

Visit bentopdf.com to use BentoPDF instantly—no installation required.

Option 2: Self-Host with Docker Copy Section

[!IMPORTANT]
Office file conversion requires SharedArrayBuffer, which needs both:

• Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: same-origin
• Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy: require-corp
• a secure context

http://localhost works for local testing because browsers treat loopback as trustworthy. http://192.168.x.x or other LAN IPs usually do not, so Word/Excel/PowerPoint conversions will require HTTPS when accessed from other devices on your network.

# Pull and run the Docker image (self-hosted build)
docker run -d -p 3000:8080 ghcr.io/alam00000/bentopdf-simple:latest

# Or use Docker Compose
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alam00000/bentopdf/main/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d

[!TIP]
BentoPDF ships in two builds: the Self-Hosted build (bentopdf-simple, used above) for internal/team/organization deployments, and the Commercial build (bentopdf:latest) used by bentopdf.com itself and by commercial license holders running public-facing deployments. Both ship the same PDF tools — the Commercial build adds the bentopdf.com hero, FAQ, testimonials, and footer. If in doubt, use the Self-Hosted build.

Then open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

[!NOTE]
If you are preparing an air-gapped OCR deployment, you must host the OCR text-layer fonts internally in addition to the Tesseract worker, core runtime, and traineddata files. The full setup is documented in Self-Hosting, including VITE_OCR_FONT_BASE_URL and the bundled ocr-fonts/ directory.

Option 3: Build from Source Copy Section

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/alam00000/bentopdf.git
cd bentopdf

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start development server
npm run dev

Features at a Glance Copy Chapter

Browser Support Copy Chapter

BentoPDF works best on modern browsers:

• ✅ Chrome/Edge 90+
• ✅ Firefox 90+
• ✅ Safari 15+

Next Steps Copy Chapter

• Explore all tools
• Self-host BentoPDF
• Contribute to the project