Nano PDF
Dev tools
pdf editing cli
SHOW HN2025
176points
40comments
#386of 3,837 in 2025
Top 11%of 2025 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
7 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 5 critical, out of 23 comments about the project. Thread score +0.08.
Execution: 2 for, 2 againstIdea: 3 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Impressive approach; text stays selectable after rehydration
From 2 comments
Wait! what? This is incredible. Amazing work.
tecoholic on HNAmazing. Worked really well. Thank you.
kumarm on HN
Objections
Page-to-image conversion is lossy and bloats file size
From 2 comments
A side effect of replacing entire pages with images is that the file size will expand dramatically. Most PDFs only contain a couple of images
shevis on HNI am disappointed that this doesn't modify the underlying pdf structure (which is a horror show, I know) but instead relies on fairly lossy OCR back&fourths. I wish an agent with…
Zopieux on HN
Lack of example input and output PDFs
From 2 comments
The lack of examples makes me very reluctant to commit any time to trying this out - despite it being something that I’m interested in. Has anyone given any it a go? Does it work?
iamflimflam1 on HNI'd love to see clearer examples: a video, or original pdf / command / result pdf. Very cool!
treetalker on HN
Requests
Include sample PDF output and screenshots
From 2 comments
Seems true and really wish the project included some sample PDF output. My Text to Speech app uses bounding box to display what text in PDF is being read and would not work well…
kumarm on HNDo you mean example commands? we see those examples on the githib README, yes, But people here are probably also looking for example input and output PDFs (or images/screenshots)…
albert_e on HN
Add a GUI
From 2 comments
it will be more excited if i can use this feature in application with GUI, it’s now convenient to check the result after edit the PDF, i need to transfer between CLI and PDF reader
informal007 on HNReally cool! I reckon a nice UI would be a good addition
ohans on HN
Questions
Does text remain selectable and keep bounding boxes?
From 2 comments
> Converts an image to a single-page PDF with a hidden text layer using Tesseract. This is the 'State Preservation' step. Does this mean the text only pdf page is transformed…
tecoholic on HNSeems true and really wish the project included some sample PDF output. My Text to Speech app uses bounding box to display what text in PDF is being read and would not work well…
kumarm on HN
Alternatives named
Photopea
From 1 comment
Try photopea next time
tkfoss on HN
LibreOffice
From 1 comment
I recently tried to change a single word in a PDF and nearly tore my hair out (thank you LibreOffice) I'll definitely keep this in mind for next time, thank you.
ThrowawayTestr on HN