EffectCraft
Motion graphics & VFX · Adobe After Effects alternative
Compositions, keyframes, expressions and Lottie, in a free motion graphics app.
PDF reader & editor · v0.7.1 · Alpha
PdfCraft: a free, open-source Acrobat alternative
PdfCraft is the PDF workbench of the Crafting Apps: an open-source, clean-room take on Adobe Acrobat. It renders complex PDFs faithfully, lets you organize pages like cards on a table, combines and splits files without losing bookmarks, handles comments, forms, layers and attachments, and opens protected documents while respecting their rules.
The online version is the official web build from the v0.7.1 release (2026-10-12). It runs locally in your browser; a desktop browser with WebGPU or WebGL2 works best.
What PdfCraft can do
Faithful rendering
World scripts, vertical Japanese, color emoji, shadings, blend modes, soft masks and optional content. It ran the 983-file pdf.js corpus with 0 crashes.
Organize pages
Select, rotate, delete, insert blank pages or pages from another file, reorder, and undo any of it, even after saving.
Combine and split
Merge any number of PDFs with per-file bookmarks, extract selected pages, or split every n pages.
Comments and forms
Threaded comments, highlights, form filling with checkboxes, radio buttons and signatures, layers and attachments.
Safe saves
Every save appends your changes and leaves the original bytes untouched, with autosave and crash recovery.
Yours
No account, no telemetry and no cloud. It works offline and opens instantly.
PdfCraft vs Adobe Acrobat
- Price
- PdfCraft: free, open source. Acrobat: paid Adobe product.
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD and the browser.
- Files
- PDF (read, annotate, fill forms, organize, combine, split, encrypt); images in and out
- Maturity
- Alpha. Upstream (Oct 2026) counts 57% of Acrobat Pro's tracked offline features and 94% of the must-haves. Reliable editing of existing text, OCR beyond Latin script and printing from the web build are still thin.
- Account & privacy
- No sign-in, no telemetry, works offline.
How to download and install PdfCraft
- Open the official PdfCraft GitHub releases or getartcraft.com/apps/pdfcraft.
- Windows: run
pdfcraft-0.7.1-windows-x64.msi(or the portable zip; ARM64 and x86 builds exist). - macOS: open
pdfcraft-0.7.1-macos-universal.dmg, which is signed and notarized for Apple Silicon and Intel. - Linux: use the AppImage, or the
.deb,.rpmor Flatpak for your distro. - Optionally verify the file against
SHA256SUMS.txtin the same release.
PdfCraft FAQ
Can PdfCraft merge PDF files?
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Yes. Combine Files merges any number of PDFs into one and gives each source file its own bookmark.
Is the online PdfCraft private?
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Yes. The WebAssembly app runs entirely in your browser. Files you open are never uploaded.
Is PdfCraft free?
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Yes. PdfCraft is free and open source under MIT OR Apache-2.0. There is no subscription, no account and no telemetry.
Can I use PdfCraft online?
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Yes. PdfCraft compiles to WebAssembly, and this site hosts the official v0.7.1 web build at artcraftsuite.org/app/pdfcraft/. It runs entirely in your browser, and files you open are not uploaded.
Where can I download PdfCraft safely?
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Only from getartcraft.com/apps/pdfcraft or the Releases page of github.com/storytold/pdfcraft. Avoid look-alike GitHub repos that offer a "local zip" or password-protected archive: they are not the official project.
Does PdfCraft run on Windows, Mac and Linux?
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Yes. Releases include Windows installers and portable zips (x64, x86, ARM64), a universal macOS DMG, Linux AppImage, deb, rpm and Flatpak (x86_64 and aarch64), FreeBSD builds and the web version.
Who makes PdfCraft?
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PdfCraft is one of the ArtCraft Crafting Apps, developed in the open at github.com/storytold/pdfcraft. It is a clean-room project and is not affiliated with Adobe.
Guides for PdfCraft
- ArtCraft vs Adobe Creative Cloud: An App-by-App ComparisonCan ArtCraft replace Adobe? We map every Creative Cloud app to its free ArtCraft counterpart (Photoshop→PhotoCraft, Illustrator→VectorCraft, Premiere→FilmCraft and more) with honest maturity notes.
- Run the ArtCraft Crafting Apps in Your Browser (No Install)All 13 ArtCraft apps (PhotoCraft, VectorCraft, FilmCraft, PdfCraft, WordCraft and more) compile to WebAssembly. Here's how to use them online, which browsers work, and what's different from the desktop apps.
More Crafting Apps
DesignCraft
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Spreads, parent pages, threaded text and IDML, in a free page layout app.
WordCraft
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The ribbon, styles, track changes and .docx, in a free word processor.