GA PDF Editor

Internal offline-first PDF viewer and editor. Open PDFs or **.gapdf projects, annotate, fill and design fillable AcroForm fields, run local OCR, and save either an editable project or a final PDF (annotations flattened; form fields remain fillable; optional password on export). Document bytes stay on the device — the app does not** upload content to a server.

Download releases (recommended)

This repository is the source tree. Packaged builds (slim/full zip, ready-to-run) are published on the product site — not as git tags or dist/ artifacts in this repo:

→ https://give.academy/GA-PDF-Editor/

This GitHub tree is slim source only (app JS/CSS/HTML, packager, docs, SVC C sources). It does not include vendored app/lib/*, web fonts, or prebuilt GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe — those come from the download site or a one-time setup (below).

Stack: Static HTML / CSS / vanilla JavaScript, PDF.js, pdf-lib, QPDF (WASM), html2canvas, Tesseract.js (fetched into app/lib/ by setup). Optional localhost SVC shell for a clean origin (PWA-friendly).

See also: VERSION for semver notes · dev/HOW-TO.md for everyday use · dev/CHANGELOG-1.5.5.md for this patch.

Getting started (from this source repo)

End users who only want to run the app should use a site release. The steps below are for people who cloned GitHub and need a working tree.

Prerequisites

No Node.js / npm required for day-to-day app work.

1. Clone

git clone https://github.com/fjlj/GA-PDF-Editor.git
cd GA-PDF-Editor

2. Fetch vendor libraries and fonts

From the repo root (setup finds app\ automatically):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\tools\package\setup.ps1

If the SVC is not built yet, setup still downloads libs/fonts; it will skip starting the server until the EXE exists.

That fills:

Pinned URLs / mirrors: tools/package/vendors.manifest.json. More flags: tools/package/SETUP.md.

Useful switches:

.\tools\package\setup.ps1 -SkipFonts
.\tools\package\setup.ps1 -SkipLibs
.\tools\package\setup.ps1 -AppRoot .\app
.\tools\package\setup.ps1 -QpdfSource C:\path\to\folder\with\qpdf.js+qpdf.wasm

3. Build the local server (GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe)

The app is static files. The SVC is a small 127.0.0.1 HTTP server (default port 17880) that serves ./app so PWA / workers / WASM behave cleanly. No admin required. Sources: tools/GA-PDF-Launcher/ (main.c + mongoose).

Put gcc on your PATH (MinGW-w64, TDM-GCC, or MSYS2 mingw-w64-gcc), then from the repo root:

cd tools\GA-PDF-Launcher

gcc -c main.c -o main.o -Os -mwindows
gcc -c libs\mongoose.c -o libs\mongoose.o -Os -mwindows
gcc main.o libs\mongoose.o -o GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe -static-libgcc -mwindows -lws2_32 -s

# Install next to app\ (required layout)
copy /Y GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe ..\..\GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe
cd ..\..

Check:

Test-Path .\GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe   # should be True

Dev-C++ / Embarcadero: Makefile.win is the original Dev-C++ makefile (include/lib paths point at a local Dev-C++ install — edit or use the gcc lines above if those paths do not match your machine).

You need **GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe at the repo root** (same folder as app\). That is the binary package.ps1 will put in release zips.

4. Run the app

# Prefer: start the SVC you just built
.\GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe

On bind it writes **Open GA PDF Editor.url** next to the EXE (default http://127.0.0.1:17880). Open that once; install as a PWA if you want.

Or re-run setup only to start the server (libs already present):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\tools\package\setup.ps1 -SkipLibs -SkipFonts

Temporary stand-in (no SVC) while debugging UI only:

python -m http.server 17880 --directory app

file:// can work for light tests after setup, but HTTP via the SVC is the intended path.

Port override:

GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe --port 27991
set GAPDF_SVC_PORT=27991

5. Smoke-check

1. Open a multi-page PDF
2. Editor: text + rectangle + circle (O); undo/redo
3. Save Project (.gapdf) and reopen
4. Save PDF
5. Optional: Form workspace field → export fillable PDF; OCR; password protect

6. Build a redistributable zip (maintainers)

After steps 2–3 (libs + your built SVC at repo root):

cd tools\package
.\package.ps1                  # dist\GA-PDF-Editor-*-slim-*.zip  (recipients run Setup.bat)
.\package.ps1 -IncludeFullLibs # full offline zip (libs already inside)

Zip expands to a single folder:

GA-PDF-Editor\
  GA-PDF-Editor-SVC.exe
  Setup.bat
  app\
  tools\                 setup.ps1, SETUP.md, vendors.manifest.json
  tools\package\         package.ps1 only
  tools\render-docs.ps1
  dev\
  DOCs\
  README.md
  VERSION
  SETUP-FIRST.txt

Recipients of a slim zip: double-click **Setup.bat** once (network). Details: tools/package/SETUP.md (becomes tools\SETUP.md inside the zip).

7. Regenerate documentation HTML

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\tools\render-docs.ps1
# optional: .\tools\render-docs.ps1 -Clean

Open DOCs\index.html → Print / PDF. Edit Markdown under dev/it-templates/ etc., then re-run.

Repository layout

Key capabilities

Deploy options

Documentation HTML (print / PDF)

Source of truth is Markdown. Edit the .md files in the tree, then regenerate HTML for browsing or Print → Save as PDF (no npm; pure PowerShell).

IT templates → print packet

Internal IT can customize the light adoption templates under **dev/it-templates/** (fill in bracketed fields, drop into ServiceNow/wiki, etc.). When you want browser-ready / printable copies:

1. Edit the .md files in **dev/it-templates/** (and any other package docs you care about).
2. From the package root, regenerate HTML:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\tools\render-docs.ps1
# full wipe + rebuild:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\tools\render-docs.ps1 -Clean

1. Open **DOCs\index.html or jump straight to DOCs\it-templates\**.
2. Use the page Print / PDF button (or Ctrl+P → Save as PDF). Enable background graphics in the print dialog if you want the dark case-study theme in the PDF.

Do not hand-edit files under **DOCs/** if you plan to re-run the renderer — -Clean regenerates that tree from Markdown.

Versioning

• Product / package: **VERSION and this README (semver 1.5.12**).
• Browser cache-bust: app/config.js → version (may include a short slug after the numbers).
• Title bar shows the numeric part only (e.g. GA PDF Editor 1.5.12).
• Stamp helpers: tools\sync-version.ps1 (then re-runs tools\render-docs.ps1).