The problem with the usual workflow
A legal assistant needs to remove an internal comment page from a contract before it goes to the other side. A clinic administrator needs to split one patient's records out of a scanned batch. A payroll officer needs to send one employee their own payslip and not the other forty in the same PDF.
All three are one-minute page operations. All three are routinely done by uploading the document to a free web tool, because that is the fastest thing to hand. In a regulated environment that single upload can be the reportable event, not the edit.
Why browser-side processing changes the analysis
If the document never leaves the device, no third-party processor is involved, no data transfer agreement is needed and no retention policy applies. Under GDPR terms, nothing has been transmitted to a processor at all; the file has been opened by local software that happens to be delivered as a web page.
This is not a promise you have to take on trust. Network activity is observable in every browser's developer tools, and the entire site keeps working with the network disconnected — a property an upload-based service cannot fake.
What to check before using any tool on sensitive files
Ask four questions: does the file leave the device, who else can read it in transit and at rest, how long is it kept, and what happens on a breach. A tool that transmits nothing answers all four the same way.
For teams that need certainty, the code is open and the whole thing is a static site — you can host it yourself on an internal network, or run the container on a machine with no outbound access at all, and it behaves identically.
Frequently asked questions
Is this suitable for GDPR-covered documents?
No personal data is transmitted, so no processor relationship is created. Confirm with your own DPO, but there is no transfer to assess.
Can we run it on our own infrastructure?
Yes. It is a static site in a container — deploy it internally, with no outbound network access if you prefer.
Does anything get cached on the device?
The application files are cached like any web page. Your documents are held in memory only and disappear when you close the tab.
What about HIPAA or similar regimes?
Protected material never reaches a server here. Your compliance team still owns the assessment, but there is no transmission in scope.
Related tools
- A PDF editor that never uploads your filesEvery mainstream online PDF tool sends your document to a server. This one cannot, and you can prove it in about thirty seconds.
- How it worksA short technical account of what happens between dropping a file on the page and downloading the result.
- How this compares with Smallpdf, iLovePDF and PDF24They are good products with far more features. The difference that matters is where your document is when the work happens.
- Delete pages from a PDFRemove single pages, a range, or everything after a certain point — and keep the file on your own device while you do it.