About ExplorePDF
The problem it was built for
People need to read a scan, fill a form, sign a page, change a document or make a new PDF. Those files can contain contracts, tax returns, medical records, visa paperwork and children's homework. Uploading them to an unknown server for an ordinary PDF task is a poor trade.
Printing brings its own problems. In a folded booklet, each back side must face the right way for the printer's binding edge and the sheet orientation. A file can look correct on screen and still print with every other page upside down.
What we decided to do about it
Put useful document work on the user's own device, make the result easy to inspect, and offer the app for free.
ExplorePDF reads and searches PDFs, changes pages, makes print layouts, splits and combines files, and turns images into a PDF. Version 1.3 for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows also recognizes scanned text, adds marks, fills ordinary forms and places a visible signature. Apple devices and Android can reduce file size when a smaller lossless copy is possible. Android can scan paper with the camera.
Local is a structure, not a promise
Plenty of products say your files are safe. We wanted a version of that claim which does not depend on trusting us.
ExplorePDF does not upload documents to a document-processing server. There is no account, in-app analytics or advertising identifier. The Apple listing is marked Data Not Collected, and the Android edition has no internet permission. The Windows document workflows operate on files on the device. Apple, Google, Microsoft and the operating system separately handle store delivery, updates and any diagnostics allowed by device settings.
How it is built
The layout mathematics lives in a separate module that opens no files and touches no document library, which means a booklet arrangement can be asserted exactly, as numbers, before any PDF is involved. That matters because the failures that hurt in this product are silent: a wrongly arranged booklet produces a file that looks correct on screen and is wrong on paper.
Two defects found that way are worth mentioning, because they are the reason for the approach. A rotated page was being clipped, because its stated size and its visible size are not the same thing. And an early booklet implementation printed every back side upside down on its own default setting, which a test written from the code had confirmed as correct. It was caught by testing against a model of a folded sheet instead, on both binding edges and both sheet orientations.
Free, and why that is not a trick
There is no paid tier, no upsell and no data being sold on the side. The apps cost nothing to run because they run on your computer, not ours. That is the whole economic story: a product with no servers has almost no marginal cost, which is what makes giving it away sustainable.
Who builds it
ExplorePDF is a product of AvanSaber Inc.
AvanSaber began as a specialized SAP implementation company focused on utilities and energy sectors. With over a decade of experience, AvanSaber has grown into a full-stack enterprise solutions provider, expanding into AI implementation, digital transformation, and vertical practices. ExplorePDF comes out of that same document and process work, pointed at a job small enough to give away.
More about AvanSaber, or write to us at [email protected].