It's here and I couldn't be more excited and relieved to finally share this. KillerPDF is a free, open-source, GPLv3 PDF editor for Windows.

v1.9 has been in parallel development for about 2 months alongside the previous 1.8.x branch and maintaining two branches is awful, would not recommend. The list of new features goes beyond this but I will do my best to explain how significant this release (codename "Overkill") has become.

v1.9 has a brand new PDF renderer and engine built from scratch to replace PDFium, true text editing that rewrites the page itself, paragraph editing, Find and Replace, permanent redaction, AES-256 and certificate encryption, digital signature verification with trusted timestamps, export to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML and Markdown, Convert Scan to Text, form recognition and XFA conversion, guided tasks with macros and watched folders, data merge, accessibility review, preflight and Reduce File Size, Office to PDF conversion, TWAIN scanning, print production tools with Bates numbering, calibrated measurement tools, File Explorer and Outlook previews, Search Tools command palette, and SEVERAL performance optimizations.

It is 4-12% faster, uses 3-6% less CPU, and 37-66% less memory than the previous 1.8.91 version using PDFium!
It also opens more files and the results are more accurate.

Details:

New renderer and engine: replaced PDFium, Docnet.Core and PdfPig for rendering, text extraction, search, selection, editing, printing and export.
Rendering quality: overprint, spot inks, CMYK output intents, ICC profiles, transparency groups, soft masks and blend modes.
Faster rendering: it runs off the UI thread, renders what's in view first, cancels stale work and sharpens as you zoom.
True text editing: a changed line is rewritten in the page content in its original font where possible, including rotated text. A cover (the old style) is only the fallback for scans.
Paragraph editing: a resizable box with font size, alignment, line spacing, an exact preview and Undo.
Find and Replace: it rewrites the PDF's real text, not an overlay.
Permanent redaction: by area, text search or sensitive-data pattern, with verification, batches and sanitization.
Document protection: AES-256 passwords, permissions, certificate recipients, and opening certificate-encrypted PDFs.
Signatures and certificates: signer and chain inspection, RFC 3161 timestamps, a Windows certificate browser, SVG signatures and a shared image library.
Document and table export: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML, Markdown, text and JSON, with editable text and ruled tables.
Convert Scan to Text: replaces scanned words with searchable text, with a review step for uncertain matches.
Built-in OCR: the engine does its own OCR, with Tesseract kept as a fallback.
Form tools: field recognition, XFA conversion, FDF and XFDF exchange, text-field presets and limited calculations.
Guided tasks and automation: email prep, scan cleanup, redaction and fillable-form tasks, macros, watched folders, and CSV, JSON or XLSX data merge.
Accessibility review: guided repairs, a reading-order check, and keyboard and screen reader support for page text.
Repair and optimization: preflight profiles, sanitization, structural reports and Reduce File Size.
Office and scanning: direct DOCX and XLSX to PDF, legacy DOC and XLS through Word or Excel, and TWAIN scanning.
Page tools: reverse, auto-orient, straighten scans, split scanned spreads, and typed page ranges.
Production tools: headers, footers, page numbers and Bates batches, plus N-up, booklet, step-and-repeat, cut-stack and poster layouts, and ink separations.
Document organization: comment threads with replies, attachments and portfolios, layers, bookmark and link audits, table of contents generation and page labels.
Measurement: calibrated distance, perimeter, area and angle, with snapping and reports.
Interface: Search Tools (Ctrl+K), customizable shortcuts, four sidebar positions, two toolbar settings (icon size and label placement), snap layouts and Close to System Tray.
Windows integration: File Explorer and Outlook previews, and command-line support through PATH.
Language: Slovenian added, for 20 interface languages.

Numbers:

The app still has full CLI support for scripting and batch processing, and works with the optional KillerMCP so your agent of choice can work with all my apps together.
The KillerPDF.Engine is available as a separate NuGet package so developers can use it in their own applications: https://www.nuget.org/packages/KillerPdf.Engine/

As per usual, please report bugs and feature requests here: https://github.com/SteveTheKiller/KillerPDF/issues

Download today:

https://killerpdf.net
Winget, Chocolatey, and Microsoft Store links take a few days to update so use the GitHub download link for now: https://github.com/SteveTheKiller/KillerPDF/releases/tag/v1.9.0

I've been working on Telescope, a free and open-source app that turns an Android phone (or any device that has a browser, with a more limited feature set) into a webcam for Linux and Windows.

Through the Android app you can use any of your phone's lenses that the Camera2 API exposes and control all the camera parameters from your desktop so you never have to reach for the phone once it is connected. Telescope supports up to 4 devices streaming to your computer at once, each showing up as its own webcam source.

It works over Wi-Fi (encrypted) or USB, can be set to start the camera only whenever it's actually needed (to save the device's battery), and shows up in Discord, Zoom, OBS and others just like a normal webcam would. There is also a plugin system with many premade ones for stuff like auto framing, background effects, colour grading, overlays and more. It also has configurable global keybinds for everything and can even be used as a microphone too.

And if you already have a webcam but just want more control over the image before the program you are using ingests it, Telescope can apply all the effects to normal USB webcams too.

Website: telescope.webcam

GitHub: LunarKittyy/Telescope

Just reposting in case someone is interested. :)

I recently finished building PDFRevamp, a browser-based tool for editing PDF documents.
The goal is to make everyday PDF editing more accessible without needing to install another program.
I’m sharing it here because I’d like to hear what people think about the website, the editing experience, and what could be improved.
You can check it out here:
https://pdfrevamp.com
Any feedback is appreciated!

termilly.com

• Multiple workspaces with multiple terminals in each
• Global search across open and closed terminals
• Git window with searchable commits and history
• Code snippets with optional variables
• Notifications and sounds when an AI agent needs your attention
• File explorer to search, preview, and copy files between local and remote folders
• Customizable actions
• Open Source

Hey everyone! I’m a product designer, and I’ve just released Cue 1.0, a free and open-source video and audio player for Windows.

I wanted a player with a little personality that stays out of the way while you watch. Cue uses libmpv for playback, with a custom C++/Win32 interface.

A few things I focused on:

• A minimal pixel interface with two control styles and four sizes.
• Subtitle controls for font, size, position, and timing, including dragging subtitles to reposition them.
• Ambient lighting that follows the scene.
• Audio-only playback with a reactive pixel waveform.
• Saved playback positions and timeline previews.

It supports English, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Simplified Chinese, with automatic language selection based on Windows.

Download and source code:
https://github.com/tinypeep/cue

Windows x64. The installer is unsigned, so SmartScreen may show a warning. Cue’s code is GPL-3.0-or-later, with third-party licenses included.

I built it with AI-assisted development and iterated on the design and behavior through testing. This is the first public release, and I’d appreciate feedback—especially on subtitle controls, readability, and anything that feels awkward during playback.

In the AI era, everyone is a developer, and people are spamming their "I built..." projects everywhere. There are probably both good and bad ones.

Are there any that you've found that are actually good and well-maintained? Please suggest them here.

I've been building Kensaku, a lightweight desktop search app because I wanted something better than the usual file search.

It indexes your files and lets you search by filename, full text, meaning, or even text inside screenshots using OCR. Just hit Alt + Space, type what you're looking for, and hit Enter.

I also added MCP and CLI support so AI agents can use the same semantic and OCR search capabilities.

The whole installer is around 9 MB, it uses roughly 20 MB of RAM while idle, and everything runs locally. No cloud, no account. It's free and MIT-licensed.

It's still early, and there's a lot more I want to build. I'd genuinely appreciate feedback, feature suggestions, and contributions.

Here's the repo if you want to check it out: https://github.com/yjid/kensaku

If you find it useful, a ⭐ would mean a lot!

Edit update : yeah, an agent built most of it. meanwhile, my work on yjid/kensaku got selected for the XERJ Corpus Hub AI coding agents can retrieve it as a worked reference instead of guessing.

apparently the same codebase is now part of a 17k ⭐ project.

Edit 2 : THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE CRAZY RESPONSE.

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a side project called Toolyard – https://toolyard.in

The idea was simple: create one place where people can access useful online tools without having to visit 10 different websites.

Currently, it has 60 tools across different categories:

• PDF Tools: Merge PDFs, split PDFs, rotate PDFs, PNG to PDF, etc.
• Image Tools: Image compressor, resizer, converter, cropper, watermark, etc.
• Developer Tools: JSON formatter, XML formatter, Base64 encoder/decoder, JWT decoder, UUID generator, etc.
• Finance Calculators: EMI, SIP, GST, FD, loan and percentage calculators.
• Text Tools: Word counter, case converter and other utilities.
• Other Tools: QR code generator, password generator, date calculators and more.

A few things I wanted to achieve:

• Keep the tools free to use.
• Make everything accessible from one website.
• Keep the interface simple and easy to use.
• Avoid unnecessary registrations for basic tools.

This is an independent project that I've built and continue to improve and it is open source i will provide github repo link.

I'd genuinely appreciate it if you could check it out and share your feedback.

Website: https://toolyard.in

I'm particularly interested in knowing:

1. Which tools would you find most useful?
2. What features are missing?
3. What would make you use a website like this regularly?

I'm open to honest criticism and suggestions. Thanks!

Can someone recommend a PDF viewer and editor that will allow me to compress a PDF file size for Windows 11 laptops that is completely free, hopefully keeps all of your data on your machine and not upload it anywhere so obviously safe to use, and doesn’t require a subscription?

I’m in a situation right now where I’m having to upload a whole bunch of stuff from doctors and other people to an attorney because of a Social Security thing and sometimes people will send me things that are too large or that I need to re-save and compress. Adobe Acrobat completely has taken over my machine so that anything I try to do even if I pick another option just opens an acrobat, and it won’t let me compress the file size or anything without subscribing. I am not in a financial state right now to be able to pay anything to do this. I deleted acrobat, but now I need to put something else on there.

So basically, I just need something that will let me read PDFs, re-save them and compress if necessary to reduce the file size, and editing would be really nice where I could fill in fields if needed, and of course, safe to use. Thank you ahead of time for any replies. I will read all of them even though I may not be able to reply to everybody.

I work in IT at a company, and I’ve been receiving comments from some of our employees regarding the use of ArtCraft applications. We understand there is enthusiasm for these new tools, we have decided to wait a couple of months to allow the software to mature. However, our primary concern is...

How secure is it to use these applications—especially within a corporate environment?

We understand that it is open source and the code can be examined, but is that enough?

I would expect the code to have been reviewed or audited, or for the software to hold some form of cibersecurity certification—something that would give me the confidence to install it.

I don’t have much experience with open-source software; does it rely entirely on trust simply because the code is publicly available?

VoxScribe is a free, open source (MIT) voice typing app for Windows, with an Android version too. You hold a key in any program, talk, and let go, and the text is typed where your cursor is. Speech is transcribed on your own PC with local models, so your voice is never uploaded. After every dictation the status line shows how many outside connections the app made, which is normally zero.

Version 1.8.3 is a big update. The main addition is Start meeting: it records your microphone and what the PC plays, removes the echo when you use speakers, and writes a markdown note with action items, decisions, questions and the transcript into a folder you choose, for example an Obsidian vault.

The same release adds term packs for medicine, law and business so those words are spelled correctly with any speech model, spoken formats that turn “one twenty over eighty” into 120/80, a notes inbox key that saves a spoken line with a timestamp, and optional extra speech models (Parakeet, Cohere and Moonshine, each downloaded only if you pick it). There is also an optional NVIDIA GPU mode.

The core app has no limits and needs no account or payment. There is an optional one-time Pro unlock for a few extras, but everything described above works without it.

Source and installer: github.com/ahmedhmam1994/voxscribe-ai-voice-dictation

Feedback is welcome, especially on the meeting notes: which apps and calls it misses.

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to Reddit. I recently shared a small tool I coded with the help of Claude Code, but some of the comments called it "AI slop". I put a lot of effort into collaborating with the AI to build this. Even though I somewhat anticipated this reaction, it's still a bit disheartening. So I wanted to ask: How do you guys decide whether a project counts as "AI slop"? How can I avoid that label, and should I explicitly mention that it was "vibe coded"?

HEY!! Im an NCH user but first time trying Zulu, can anyone explain how to add sample thingies on audio tracks?? and also, I dont know how to make use of the effects on [Deck Effects] as I thought I can change the volume of these and the track would change.. (Using Advanced Layout)

THANK YOU EVERYON FFOR HELP :) :)

Cześć. Dawno temu korzystałem z aplikacji FreeOTFE (do montowania partycji LUKS z Linuxa w Windows). Zdecydowanie wolę szyfrowanie LUKS od BitLockera.

Aplikacja działała świetnie na WinXP, ale już miała problemy z nowszymi wersjami.

I pomyślałem sobie, może znasz jakieś zastępstwo, albo może w czasach Claude’a – czy ktoś pracuje nad narzędziem, które działa na aktualnych systemach Windows 10/11?

(https://sourceforge.net/projects/freeotfe.mirror/)

I’m looking to career switch into software engineering, the issue is i have 0 software/ IT experience or education. I’m currently working as a doctor and I hate it but having done 5 years at university(and £100k student debt) i’m looking for alternate routes into learning software and to hopefully start working as soon as possible to get out of medicine ASAP. Any advice/ guidance would be massively appreciated. Thank you 😊

Hey everyone!

I got tired of sketchy online PDF converters that force you to upload sensitive files to random servers just to merge a couple of pages or compress a file.

So, I built PrivatePDF — a fast, free, and privacy-first web utility suite that does all the processing locally in your browser using JavaScript and WebAssembly (pdf-lib).

Features included:

• 📄 Merge & Split PDFs
• 📦 Compress file sizes
• 🔄 Rotate & Organize pages
• 💧 Add text watermarks & page numbers
• 🖼️ Convert PDF to JPG (and vice-versa)
• 🔒 Add basic password protection & extract text to Markdown

Why use it?

• Zero uploads: Your files never leave your device.
• No registration or limits: Free and instant.
• Works offline: Once the page is loaded, it runs completely on your machine.

You can try it out here: https://pdf.collectionlogica.com/

I built this to solve my own daily headaches, and I'd love to get your feedback or hear if you encounter any bugs! What other features would be useful to add?

Hey everyone!

I've just released the first version of EFC (Easy File Converter), a Windows utility I built to make file conversion quicker and less disruptive.

Instead of opening a separate app, selecting a bunch of options and navigating through dialogs, you can simply:

• Select a file in Windows File Explorer.
• Press Ctrl + Shift + E.
• Choose the output format from a small glass-like radial menu next to your cursor.

The converted file is saved in the same folder as the original, and your original file is never overwritten.

What can it do?

• 🖼️ Convert images between formats such as PNG, JPG, WEBP, AVIF and more.
• 📄 Convert PDFs to images or text, and merge, split, rotate or compress PDFs.
• 🎵 Convert audio and video files using bundled FFmpeg.
• 📝 Convert text files to PDF or Word.
• 📊 Export Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents to PDF if Microsoft Office is installed.
• 📦 Compress photos and videos to make them easier to share.

Everything is processed locally on your computer. Your files aren't uploaded to a server.

Download EFC: https://github.com/n0ciram/EFC

One thing to know: the installer isn't digitally signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may display a warning.

This is my first public release, and I'd appreciate some feedback!

I've been using freetranscription.ai for a while, and they just cut the daily free from 30min/file to 30min/day.

I also use turboscribe.ai but their editor is not the best to work with. I dont have a mac, so cant use macwhisper.

Any other solutions any one can suggest?