tinypdf: scratching my own itch in the age of AI

One thing I like about the current wave of AI-assisted development is how quickly a small frustration can turn into a working tool.

That is basically how tinypdf came about.

I regularly need to do two very simple things with PDFs:

merge and reorder pages
compress a PDF before sending or uploading it somewhere

There are already plenty of PDF services online, but I kept running into the same friction: create an account, start a trial, hit a free limit, or pay for something I only need for a minute.

So instead of looking for yet another service, I put together my own.

Keeping it deliberately small

My goal with tinypdf was not to recreate a full PDF suite.

It only focuses on the things I actually use:

Merge & Organize PDFs

Choose or drop multiple PDFs, see the individual pages, reorder them, rotate or remove pages, and download a new PDF.

Compress PDFs

Choose one or more PDFs, select a compression level, and let the browser process them one at a time. Each result shows the original and output size, including the honest answer when a PDF cannot be made smaller.

That is pretty much it.

No dashboard. No subscription. No account.

Privacy was part of the idea

One thing I specifically wanted was for PDF processing to happen directly in the browser.

The PDF contents are selected from your device, processed locally, and the resulting PDF is downloaded back to you. There is no tinypdf server endpoint receiving or storing documents.

In other words:

No account, no document uploads, no fuss.

Besides being better for privacy, this also keeps the project technically simple. I do not need to store people’s documents, manage user accounts, or maintain a database just to merge a few pages together.

Keeping it friendly to slower devices

Local processing means the browser has to do the work, so I did not want to pretend every PDF was harmless. tinypdf keeps the limits deliberately conservative: up to 20 PDFs per selection, 25 MiB per PDF, 50 MiB in total, and 200 pages. Compression runs sequentially, and page previews load near the viewport with only a couple of renders running at once.

Those limits are not a boast about what every laptop can handle. They are there so a useful little tool does not turn into a frozen browser tab when someone drops in a large scanned document.

AI changed the economics of small tools

tinypdf is also a small example of how I think about prototyping now.

Not every idea needs to become a startup, SaaS platform, or large product.

Sometimes there is value in noticing something annoying and asking:

Could I just make a simpler version for myself?

With AI-assisted coding, the distance between that question and a usable product has become much shorter.

That does not mean the work disappears. There are still plenty of decisions around UX, browser performance, PDF compatibility, accessibility, error handling, and making sure the result actually works reliably.

But the cost of trying an idea is much lower.

That makes small, focused tools much more interesting to me.

Why only two features?

It would be easy to keep adding things:

split PDFs
convert images
OCR
signatures
watermarks
password protection
dozens of file conversions

But that would quickly turn tinypdf into the same kind of product I was trying to avoid.

For now, I prefer the narrower idea:

Two common PDF jobs, done quickly.

If I need more later, I can add more later.

Try it

tinypdf is available at:

tinypdf.ch

It is free to use, does not require an account, and PDF contents are processed in your browser. There are normal hosting and aggregate analytics requests, but the documents themselves stay out of them.

If you happen to use it, feedback is welcome, especially around the merge/reorder experience and compression quality.