[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":349},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-4645173":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":10,"maker":11,"posted_at":12,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rank_in_year":16,"shown_in_year":17,"top":18,"tier":19,"category":20,"subcategory":21,"format":22,"keywords":23,"reception":29,"sentiment":30,"stance_mix":31,"scored_comments":36,"aspects":37,"strip":45,"post_text":48,"what":49,"said":99,"maker_in_thread":212,"shape":218,"grid":223,"attempts":314,"same_week":315,"maker_shows":46,"maker_hidden":342,"reader_version":343,"card":344},"4645173","Docverter","convert plaintext to PDF, Docx, or ePub. Now in open beta.","title","Show HN: Docverter: convert plaintext to PDF, Docx, or ePub. Now in open beta.","http:\u002F\u002Fwww.docverter.com\u002Flearn.html","docverter.com","zrail",1350052329,2012,58,42,398,1677,24,"notable","web_saas","document conversion api","api",[24,25,26,27,28],"document conversion","markdown to pdf","pandoc","html to pdf","epub","curious",0.19,{"positive":32,"neutral":33,"mixed":34,"critical":35},6,11,0,2,19,{"docs":38,"idea":40,"pricing":42,"execution":43,"design":44},{"positive":39,"critical":39},1,{"positive":41,"critical":34},4,{"positive":39,"critical":34},{"positive":34,"critical":39},{"positive":34,"critical":34},[39,34,34,34,34,46,47,46,34,46,34,34,46,34,47,34,47,34,39,34,34,34,46,34,47,34,47,34,47,46,47,34,47,47,34,47,34,34,34,47],5,3,null,{"problem":50,"audience":60,"pricing":67,"motivation":76,"time_to_build":48,"stack":80,"openness":97,"stage":98,"team_size":97},{"value":51,"source":52,"evidence":53},"Converting documents between formats without running pandoc and PDF tools yourself","maker",[54,57],{"id":55,"by":11,"text":56},"4645372","If you're running your app on Heroku or another free PaaS, it's a pain to get pandoc running and stay within the slug size limits. Additionally, if you want to convert HTML to…",{"id":58,"by":11,"text":59},"4645302","Thanks! The pitch is that HTML to PDF conversion tools, as a rule, are not very good. Docverter is actually on it's third iteration of that particular conversion because the…",{"value":61,"source":52,"evidence":62},"Developers building apps that need document export, especially on Heroku or other PaaS",[63,64],{"id":55,"by":11,"text":56},{"id":65,"by":11,"text":66},"4645387","You're right, I went through and renamed some sections. I did that to reduce confusion, because there are a bunch of parts where the pandoc docs talk about things that don't make…",{"value":68,"source":52,"evidence":69},"Paid plans with a free developer plan that adds watermarks",[70,73],{"id":71,"by":11,"text":72},"4645427","Thank you for the kind words. There are a few examples on the API page in the Advanced section but you're right, they should be featured more prominently. Also, the free dev plan…",{"id":74,"by":11,"text":75},"4646053","There's a dev plan link at the bottom of the pricing page, specifically for evaluating before you purchase. It watermarks your documents but other than that it's the real deal.",{"value":77,"source":52,"evidence":78},"Avoid the pain of running Pandoc and HTML-to-PDF tooling on PaaS hosts",[79],{"id":55,"by":11,"text":56},[81,87,93],{"value":82,"source":52,"evidence":83},"Pandoc",[84],{"id":85,"by":11,"text":86},"4645914","Docverter is a collection of a few pieces of software that get used at various times. For example, if you do markdown to docx you'll just be using Pandoc. If you convert to PDF…",{"value":88,"source":52,"evidence":89},"Flying Saucer (Java)",[90],{"id":91,"by":11,"text":92},"4645497","It's a small web service that wraps around a Java library named Flying Saucer, so there isn't anything to look at really. Flying Saucer excels against the alternatives I looked…",{"value":94,"source":52,"evidence":95},"Calibre",[96],{"id":85,"by":11,"text":86},"unknown","beta",{"praise":100,"objections":124,"requests":143,"questions":173,"alternatives":196},[101,113],{"value":102,"source":103,"evidence":104},"Useful for avoiding self-hosted conversion setup","commenter",[105,109],{"id":106,"by":107,"text":108},"4646023","lentil","I don't think it's bad faith at all. They're up front about what tools the system is built on. It's more about whether it makes the most sense for you to build and host something…",{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},"4645281","nlh","This looks great (and is something I'll very likely use on a project I'm working on now!) My quick \"dumb\" question -- what's the pitch for using this vs. what I would call more…",{"value":114,"source":103,"evidence":115},"Competitive pricing and a free dev plan",[116,120],{"id":117,"by":118,"text":119},"4645344","alexchamberlain","I'm impressed someone has had the balls to launch a service without a free-tier. Note that there is a developer's access plan for free though, so no moaning!",{"id":121,"by":122,"text":123},"4646218","liamk","Looks great. If you added docx and pptx to the inputs then you could easily compete with some big names (your prices are very competitive).",[125,136],{"value":126,"source":103,"evidence":127},"Mostly a wrapper around pandoc and Flying Saucer, with copied docs",[128,132],{"id":129,"by":130,"text":131},"4645364","pestaa","What does this add to pandoc? In other words, why would I pay for this service? It obviously runs in the cloud, but I haven't found much else. In fact, my observation is that the…",{"id":133,"by":134,"text":135},"4645720","rodw","Also, for what it's worth the author was very open and explicit about the provenance. In the footer: \"This is a copy of the Pandoc README file, modified to suit Docverter's…",{"value":137,"source":103,"evidence":138},"Pricing does not suit occasional single conversions",[139],{"id":140,"by":141,"text":142},"4646887","eblade","This is likely a service I'd use once in a while. Say I want to convert an html to mobi once per month, the listed pricings do not fit my use case. That means one conversion for…",[144,151,161,169],{"value":145,"source":103,"evidence":146},"Support DOCX and PPTX as input formats",[147,148],{"id":121,"by":122,"text":123},{"id":149,"by":11,"text":150},"4646232","Thanks. I added docx and pptx inputs to the todo list. I'll have to look into how to parse them into HTML.",{"value":152,"source":103,"evidence":153},"URL to PDF conversion",[154,158],{"id":155,"by":156,"text":157},"4646143","pknight","Are you going to add a way to convert urls to pdfs? It would be awesome to create a pdf of a webpage from the push of a button.",{"id":159,"by":11,"text":160},"4646169","I was actually just talking to someone else about that over email. It's definitely possible, I just haven't had time to explore it yet.",{"value":162,"source":103,"evidence":163},"Examples page with sample outputs",[164,168],{"id":165,"by":166,"text":167},"4645408","memset","This is super cool. One thing that would be useful is an \"examples\" page. That is, have some sample .txt or .html files, and show us what the output .doc, .docx, .pdf, .epub, etc…",{"id":71,"by":11,"text":72},{"value":170,"source":103,"evidence":171},"Pay-per-use pricing",[172],{"id":140,"by":141,"text":142},[174,182,189],{"value":175,"source":103,"evidence":176},"What does this add over running pandoc directly?",[177,181],{"id":178,"by":179,"text":180},"4645359","lrem","Is there any benefit to this over simply running Pandoc?",{"id":129,"by":130,"text":131},{"value":183,"source":103,"evidence":184},"Does it handle tables and Word styling in DOCX output?",[185],{"id":186,"by":187,"text":188},"4646981","evolve2k","Can this service handle more complex structures like converting a table in Textile or Markdown into a Table in docx? Can it handle word styling? I'm building software where the…",{"value":190,"source":103,"evidence":191},"Can PDFs be watermarked and password protected?",[192],{"id":193,"by":194,"text":195},"4645578","don_draper","Can you watermark and password protect pdf files? If so this would be a great service for selling ebooks.",[197,201,208],{"value":82,"source":103,"evidence":198},[199,200],{"id":178,"by":179,"text":180},{"id":129,"by":130,"text":131},{"value":202,"source":103,"evidence":203},"Prince",[204],{"id":205,"by":206,"text":207},"4647633","sciboy","We've been using phantomjs, but it has it's issues too. I'm not sure there is a good solution anywhere in the open source world unfortunately - and tools like prince are expensive.",{"value":209,"source":103,"evidence":210},"PhantomJS",[211],{"id":205,"by":206,"text":207},{"comments":213,"answered":33,"key":214},18,[215,216,217],{"id":65,"text":66},{"id":85,"text":86},{"id":71,"text":72},{"commenters":219,"max_depth":220,"maker_replies":213,"first_comment_mins":221,"lifespan_hours":222},22,7,10,14,[224,226,228,231,232,234,236,240,242,243,245,249,252,253,255,259,260,264,266,269,272,274,275,277,278,279,283,285,286,287,290,292,293,295,298,300,301,302,304,306,309,312],[129,34,39,225,130,34],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fdocs",[65,34,34,227,11,39],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[229,34,34,230,118,34],"4645388","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[133,34,34,230,134,34],[85,34,34,233,11,39],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[106,34,46,235,107,34],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fidea",[237,34,47,238,239,34],"4647310","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea","samstokes",[165,39,46,241,166,34],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fdocs",[71,39,34,227,11,39],[117,35,46,244,118,34],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fpricing",[246,35,34,247,248,34],"4645766","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing","endlessvoid94",[250,35,34,230,251,34],"4646802","hntester123",[110,47,46,235,111,34],[58,47,34,254,11,39],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fperformance",[256,47,47,257,258,34],"4645462","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution","highace",[91,47,34,257,11,39],[261,47,47,262,263,34],"4645612","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign","vamega",[265,47,34,262,11,39],"4645635",[267,47,39,268,206,34],"4647066","project\u002Fcritical\u002Fexecution",[270,47,34,271,11,39],"4647079","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[273,47,34,271,11,39],"4647140",[205,47,34,230,206,34],[276,41,34,233,11,39],"4645207",[121,46,46,235,122,34],[149,46,34,238,11,39],[280,46,47,281,282,34],"4646441","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution","eric_bullington",[284,46,34,271,11,39],"4646464",[155,32,47,233,156,34],[159,32,34,238,11,39],[288,32,47,233,289,34],"4646990","josephlord",[291,32,46,235,156,34],"4647922",[186,220,47,257,187,34],[294,220,34,281,11,39],"4646997",[140,296,47,297,141,34],8,"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[178,299,47,233,179,34],9,[55,299,34,233,11,39],[193,221,47,233,194,34],[303,221,34,271,11,39],"4645646",[305,221,34,271,11,39],"4645686",[307,221,34,308,11,39],"4647790","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[310,33,47,297,311,34],"4645797","sebnukem2",[74,33,34,313,11,39],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[],[316,320,325,330,334,338],{"id":317,"name":318,"points":319,"category":20},"4643175","Selfstarter",463,{"id":321,"name":322,"points":323,"category":324},"4656850","dbpatterns",125,"learning_science",{"id":326,"name":327,"points":328,"category":329},"4656378","What would Paul Graham do?",109,"productivity",{"id":331,"name":332,"points":333,"category":324},"4642330","LearnStreet",101,{"id":335,"name":336,"points":337,"category":20},"4658794","Five Year Itch",86,{"id":339,"name":340,"points":341,"category":329},"4650530","doc-edit",81,false,"v2",{"id":345,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":342,"cat":20,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rec":29,"s":30,"top":18,"kw":346,"maker":11,"domain":10,"tier":19,"attempts":34,"strip":347,"url":9,"mix":348,"praise":102,"objection":126,"sub":21},4645173,[24,25,26,27,28],"1000053505005030301000503030353033030003",[32,33,34,35],1793990886123]