Workspace: chain PDF tools without re-picking your file

Chain PDF tools without re-picking your file

Add one or more documents, then run merge, split, rotate, organize, compress, watermark, page numbers, protect, unlock, flatten, resize, deskew and image/Word/Excel export in any order — each step measured on the output bytes it produced, with undo, in your browser tab. Nothing is uploaded.

How the chain works

Every step reads the current document’s bytes, runs one tool against them, and re-measures the result — the receipt line you see (size before/after, page count, a content hash) is read off the produced file, not asserted in advance. Steps that export to another format (JPG, Word, Excel, extracted images) are side outputs: they attach a download without changing the document the chain keeps working on.

Copies, not overwrites

Every tool run makes a new copy — v1 is the file as loaded, v2 is what the first tool produced, and so on. Each copy has its own card in the band below, and each card can preview that copy on the stage, download it, or make it the source the next tool runs against. Running a tool against an older copy makes a new copy from that one; the copies you already have are not removed or rewritten.

Copies stay in this tab’s memory by default. Nothing is written to browser storage unless you explicitly choose Keep on this browser; kept originals and copies are encrypted before storage, and Delete from browser or Clear all kept files removes the retained record and its key. If an unkept copy’s bytes have been dropped, its card offers to rebuild it by replaying the recorded steps from your original file — and the rebuilt bytes are only accepted if their sha256 matches what the chain recorded. Where a step on the path cannot be replayed (a merge, an image append, a password, a hand edit in a full tool page) the card says so instead of offering a button that could not work.

Undo and cancel

Undo strikes the selected copy out of the chain and puts you back on the copy it was made from; Redo puts it back. It refuses, and says so, if other copies were made from the one you are undoing. Every step runs through the same cancellable runtime every tool page uses, so Stop works mid-step and leaves the chain exactly where it was.

The Document Passport

The passport is a record of what was done to one copy: the input’s sha256, every step on the path from the original to that copy, in order, and a chainHash over them. It is self-issued and unsigned — it shows that the steps it lists are intact and in this order, and it does not prove authorship, approval, or that the document’s contents are true.

Every tool, on its own page

The workspace covers the common chainable tools with minimal inline options. For a tool’s full configuration — or one not listed here — open it directly:

Chaining PDF Tools, With Proof of What Happened — the launch article