18 tools
Java library and CLI toolset covering PDF creation from scratch (with embedded fonts and images), Unicode text extraction, splitting and merging, form field extraction and filling, PDF/A-1b validation via its Preflight module, rendering pages to PNG/JPEG, printing via the Java printing API, and digital signing. The de facto standard Java PDF library, used as the underlying engine behind numerous other tools in this directory (PDFsam, PDFLayoutTextStripper, PdfBox-Android, and more).
Unicode TrueType font subset embedding, cell/multi-cell/plaintext writing with automatic page breaks, optional Markdown-like text styling, image embedding with transparency, SVG import, arbitrary path drawing, table generation, internal/external links, barcodes/charts/emoji, document encryption and digital signing, annotations (highlights, file attachments), HTML-to-PDF conversion, basic math rendering, and TOC/outline generation.
RubyPDF library and CLI (positioned as a pdftk/Poppler-utils alternative): creates PDFs from scratch with vector drawing, JPEG/PNG/PDF image embedding, and TrueType text with subsetting; a high-level document composition engine (automatic layout, text flow, page breaks, lists, multi-column, reusable styles); modifies and merges existing PDFs; creates AcroForms with Adobe-like appearances; adds annotations, outlines, and file attachments; extracts metadata/text/images/files; encrypts (incl. PDF 2.0 AES-256) and digitally signs; and optimizes file size with object validation.
Create and manipulate PDFs, merge documents, digitally sign, create and fill AcroForm fields, generate PDF/A and PDF/UA archival/accessible output, encrypt (including FIPS-compliant crypto), generate barcodes, embed SVG, and redact content — the core feature set of the modern, actively-developed iText line. Separate official add-ons extend it further: pdfOCR (Tesseract- or ONNX-based optical character recognition) and pdfHTML (HTML/CSS-to-PDF conversion), both maintained by the same organization rather than third-party plugins.
CLightweight, fast C library, desktop viewer, and CLI toolset for PDF, XPS, and e-book formats, built by Artifex around the same rendering core used in Ghostscript. Renders pages and extracts text/images/metadata/structured content; creates, splits, merges, and compresses PDFs; adds annotations (highlights, stamps, shapes); permanently redacts content; and digitally signs documents. Converts between PDF, SVG, PNG, HTML, and PostScript, and embeds into web pages and native apps via its library bindings.
KDE's universal document viewer: reads PDF (via Poppler), EPUB, DjVU, Markdown, images, and CBR/CBZ comic archives through a shared plugin architecture, so the same viewer UI works across formats. Adds inline and popup annotations, highlights, underlines, and freehand text; views and verifies embedded digital signatures and can sign PDFs itself; offers text selection with a magnifier tool; and provides thumbnail navigation alongside an auto-generated table of contents.
JavaPDF creation/manipulation library: creates PDFs from scratch and modifies existing ones (add/remove pages, edit text); HTML-to-PDF conversion (openpdf-html module); text, fonts, graphics, images, and tables; page layout control; encryption and digital signing (via BouncyCastle); text extraction; PDF-to-image rendering (openpdf-renderer); and PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2) features including Brotli stream compression.
Pure-Ruby framework for parsing, modifying, and creating PDF files, with lazy on-demand parsing: compression filters with predictors, RC4/AES encryption (including Revision 6), digital signatures and usage rights, file attachments, AcroForm/XFA forms, and object streams. Ships CLI tools including `pdfcop` for detecting dangerous PDF content (not a full malware-analysis/forensics suite by the author's own description) plus decompression, decryption, encryption, resource-extraction, and metadata-inspection utilities.
Go PDF processor (CLI + library) supporting PDF up to 2.0 (ISO 32000-2): validate, optimize, split, trim, and merge PDFs; encrypt/decrypt; resize, rotate, and crop pages; extract/manipulate images, fonts, and metadata; manage attachments and portfolios; validate, report, and remove digital signatures; add/remove stamps and watermarks; process forms, bookmarks, and annotations; and generate booklets, N-up/N-down layouts, grids, and posters.
Source code of the well-known PDFCreator from pdfforge, a free virtual-printer application: install it once and any application's own Print dialog can output directly to PDF. Supports merging and reordering pages, password and digital-signature protection, PDF/A archival compliance, custom cover pages, and automated post-processing actions (FTP upload, email delivery, custom scripting) triggered on every conversion. Widely used as a default 'print to PDF' tool on Windows.
PythonPure-Python CLI (companion to pypdf) with commands including 2-up/booklet page layout, cat (extract/merge pages), check-sign (verify signatures), compress/uncompress, extract-annotated-pages, extract-images, extract-links, extract-text, meta/pagemeta, rm (delete pages), rotate, sign, update-offsets (repair simple PDFs), and x2pdf (convert other formats to PDF pages).
C++17 library for reading, writing, and modifying PDFs: full-featured low-level Unicode text extraction (with CJK support), text drawing with automatic CID encoding and font subsetting, incremental-update saving, PAdES-B digital signing (RSA/ECDSA, async), and PDF/A and PDF/UA compliance preservation when adding annotations or form fields. Does not yet render PDF content, and text shaping/kerning is limited.
PDF rendering library and command-line suite — a fork of Xpdf that's become the de facto standard PDF engine underlying much of the open-source PDF ecosystem, powering tools like Evince, Okular, and countless downstream wrappers. Ships pdftotext, pdfimages, pdftoppm, pdftocairo, pdftohtml, pdftops, pdfinfo, pdffonts, pdfdetach, pdfattach, pdfseparate, pdfunite, and pdfsig, covering text/image extraction, page rendering, format conversion, metadata, attachments, and signature verification.
Self-hostable PDF toolkit with 50+ tools: edit, merge, split, sign, redact, and convert PDFs; OCR scanned pages; compress files; validate signatures; apply watermarks; and automate workflows via no-code pipelines, a REST API, and webhooks. Offered as a browser-based UI, desktop client, or self-hosted server (incl. air-gapped deployment).
PHPUTF-8/RTL text with TrueType/OpenType/Type1/CID-0 font support and subsetting; HTML/CSS and SVG rendering with multi-column layouts, headers/footers, bookmarks, and TOC; JPEG/PNG/SVG images (plus GIF/BMP/TIFF/etc. via GD); RC4/AES-256 encryption; PAdES/PKCS#7 digital signatures with RFC 3161 TSA timestamps and LTV; PDF/A, PDF/X, and PDF/UA compliance modes; page import/reordering; AcroForm fields; and companion-package barcode support.
PHPPure-PHP PDF and barcode generation library requiring no external extensions, covering text and vector graphics, digital signatures, form fields, password and public-key encryption, and HTML/CSS rendering for converting simple markup directly into PDF layout. One of the most widely deployed PHP PDF libraries historically, bundled by default with several major PHP CMS and e-commerce platforms rather than needing separate installation.
Comprehensive Go PDF toolkit for reading, writing, and processing PDFs: text/image/table extraction, merging/splitting/rotating/rearranging pages, form creation and filling, encryption/decryption, digital signing, watermarking, and image-to-PDF conversion.
Go PDF library (pure Go): generates reports/invoices with styled text and tables; creates and fills forms; merges, splits, reorders, and rotates pages (incl. N-up layouts); extracts text (with position/formatting), images, and tabular data to CSV; adds/converts images to PDF; removes or adds password protection; validates and applies digital signatures; compresses/optimizes files; adds watermarks; and supports CCITTFax/JBIG2 image decoding.