About PDFBolt
Free PDF tools that respect your privacy — because your documents belong to you, not to a cloud server.
What PDFBolt is
PDFBolt is a free, browser-based toolkit for working with PDF and image files. Merge, split, compress, convert, protect — the tools you need, without the usual tradeoffs. No account to create, no watermarks, no file-size paywalls, no waiting for server processing.
How it actually works
Unlike most online PDF tools, PDFBolt doesn't upload your files to a server. Every conversion runs entirely in your browserusing WebAssembly and modern JavaScript APIs. When you drop a file into PDFBolt, it stays on your device. When you close the tab, it's gone.
This matters when you're working with résumés, contracts, medical records, tax documents, or anything else you'd rather not hand to a third party. If your files would make a lawyer nervous on a server somewhere, use PDFBolt.
PDFBolt is built on open-source libraries — Mozilla's pdf.js, docx, pdf-lib, pdfmake, jszip — running client-side in a Web Worker. The site itself is a static Next.js app served from Cloudflare's edge network, so pages load fast anywhere in the world.
Why it's free
Running PDFBolt costs almost nothing because the heavy work happens on your computer, not ours. The site is supported by ads — which is why you'll occasionally see banner placements on tool pages. Those ads don't see your files any more than we do. If you prefer an ad-free experience, an adblocker works fine; the tools function identically.
What works well, and what doesn't (yet)
PDFBolt is honest about its limits. The conversion engines are strong on text-heavy documents — résumés, reports, articles, books. They're weaker on:
- Scanned PDFs (no OCR yet — text in images stays as images)
- Complex magazine layouts with irregular columns and pull quotes
- PDFs with form fields, math equations, or non-Latin scripts in unusual fonts
We're improving all of this. If a conversion doesn't come out right, let us know — real feedback is what drives the next engine update.
Who made it
PDFBolt is an independent project. It's not backed by a company, it doesn't have a sales team, and it's not angling to upsell you a subscription. It exists because the existing PDF tools either uploaded your files, watermarked your output, or paywalled basic features — and none of that felt right.
Get in touch
Bug reports, feature requests, something not converting right — leave a note on the feedback page. Every submission lands in our inbox and gets looked at.