Show HN: Studio – a drag-and-drop PDF workspace for multi-document workflows(localpdf.online)
localpdf.online
Show HN: Studio – a drag-and-drop PDF workspace for multi-document workflows
https://localpdf.online/app/studio
1 comments
A few implementation details in case they're useful:
- LocalPDF runs fully in the browser — files are not uploaded to a server - The Studio UI is built as a canvas-style workspace with React Konva - Export/rebuild happens locally rather than through a server roundtrip - Studio is aimed at multi-document workflows, not just one-off conversions - I've been testing it on larger PDFs too, but performance still depends a lot on the user's machine because the whole point is local-first processing
The part I'm most curious about is whether the workspace/canvas model feels genuinely useful, or whether most people still prefer traditional tool-by-tool PDF UX.
- LocalPDF runs fully in the browser — files are not uploaded to a server - The Studio UI is built as a canvas-style workspace with React Konva - Export/rebuild happens locally rather than through a server roundtrip - Studio is aimed at multi-document workflows, not just one-off conversions - I've been testing it on larger PDFs too, but performance still depends a lot on the user's machine because the whole point is local-first processing
The part I'm most curious about is whether the workspace/canvas model feels genuinely useful, or whether most people still prefer traditional tool-by-tool PDF UX.
The thing I'm sharing here is Studio: https://localpdf.online/app/studio
Most PDF apps are built around isolated tools — merge, split, rotate, delete pages, edit text, and so on. That works fine for one-off tasks, but a lot of real PDF work isn't one-off. Usually it's more like: open a few files, compare them, pull pages from one into another, remove junk, reorder things, make a couple of edits, then export the result.
That workflow always felt awkward to me in traditional PDF editors because you keep bouncing between separate tools and separate screens.
So I built Studio around a different model — a drag-and-drop workspace for PDFs. Instead of doing one tool at a time, you can:
- Drop multiple PDF files into one workspace - Arrange documents on a canvas - Drag pages between documents - Copy, reorder, and delete pages - Edit inside the same working area - Export when you're done
Everything still runs locally in the browser on the user's machine — no file uploads, privacy by default, performance depends on the user's hardware, not a remote queue.
Under the hood: the UI is a canvas-style workspace, page operations are composed locally, and the output PDF is rebuilt on-device rather than sent to a backend for processing.
I've also been testing it on larger documents, because this kind of interface only matters if it still feels usable once the file stops being a tiny 3-page PDF.
What I was aiming for was something that feels less like filling out forms and more like actually working with documents.
I'd especially love feedback on: 1. Does this feel meaningfully different from existing PDF editors? 2. Is drag-and-drop organization actually a better mental model for PDF work? 3. If you work with large PDFs, what workflows would you stress test first?
Happy to answer technical questions too.