PDFeed

A full MVP file conversion website built with Next.js and Express. It includes a modern responsive interface, SEO-focused tool pages, temporary randomized file storage, automatic deletion after one hour, and launch-stage free beta limits.

Free beta limits

• No login or registration required
• 10 successful conversions per IP during each 24-hour window
• 25MB maximum size per uploaded file
• Failed conversions do not consume the daily allowance
• Usage is stored in application memory for the beta stage

The API returns quota details with successful conversion responses and limit errors. GET /api/convert/quota returns the current IP's remaining allowance. Health checks and file downloads are not rate limited.

The in-memory usage map resets when the backend restarts. Move this state to Redis or another shared store before running multiple backend replicas.

Included tools

• Word to PDF using LibreOffice
• Excel to PDF using LibreOffice
• JPG/PNG to PDF using Sharp and pdf-lib
• PDF to JPG using Poppler's pdftoppm
• Merge PDF using pdf-lib
• Split PDF into one PDF per page, returned as a ZIP
• Compress PDF using Ghostscript
• PDF to Word using ConvertAPI when configured, local pdf2docx, LibreOffice, and an open-source PyMuPDF/python-docx fallback

Project structure

.
├── frontend/
│   ├── app/                  # Next.js App Router pages and metadata
│   ├── components/           # Reusable UI and converter components
│   └── lib/                  # Tool configuration and SEO content
├── backend/
│   ├── uploads/              # Temporary source files
│   ├── converted/            # Temporary output files
│   └── src/
│       ├── middleware/       # Multer upload rules
│       ├── routes/           # Convert and download routes
│       ├── services/         # PDF, image, office, archive, cleanup
│       └── utils/            # File and error utilities
├── .env.example
└── package.json              # Workspace scripts

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or newer
• npm 10 or newer
• LibreOffice for Word and Excel conversion
• Poppler for PDF to JPG
• Ghostscript for PDF compression
• Python 3.10 or newer for local PDF to Word conversion

The JPG/PNG to PDF, merge PDF, and split PDF tools work with Node dependencies only.

PDF to Word providers

PDF_TO_WORD_PROVIDER=auto uses the first successful provider in this order:

1. ConvertAPI, when CONVERTAPI_TOKEN is configured. This provides the best fidelity and supports OCR for scanned PDFs.
2. Local pdf2docx, which reconstructs text, images, tables, and layout.
3. LibreOffice PDF import/export, when the installed build supports it.
4. A local PyMuPDF and python-docx fallback that preserves text runs, basic font styling, images, page sizes, and page breaks.

Install the local Python dependencies:

npm run setup:python --workspace backend

To force one provider, set PDF_TO_WORD_PROVIDER to convertapi, pdf2docx, libreoffice, or fallback. Set PYTHON_PATH when Python is not available as python.

Windows external tools

Install the required applications, then either add their executable directories to PATH or set absolute paths in backend/.env.

Typical executable names:

LibreOffice:  C:\Program Files\LibreOffice\program\soffice.exe
Poppler:      C:\path\to\poppler\Library\bin\pdftoppm.exe
Ghostscript:  C:\Program Files\gs\gs10.xx.x\bin\gswin64c.exe

Example backend/.env values:

LIBREOFFICE_PATH=C:\Program Files\LibreOffice\program\soffice.exe
PDFTOPPM_PATH=C:\path\to\poppler\Library\bin\pdftoppm.exe
GHOSTSCRIPT_PATH=C:\Program Files\gs\gs10.xx.x\bin\gswin64c.exe
PDF_TO_WORD_PROVIDER=auto
PYTHON_PATH=python
CONVERTAPI_TOKEN=

On macOS, install the tools with Homebrew:

brew install --cask libreoffice
brew install poppler ghostscript

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libreoffice poppler-utils ghostscript

Setup

1. Install all workspace dependencies:

   npm install

2. Create environment files:

   Copy-Item backend/.env.example backend/.env
   Copy-Item frontend/.env.example frontend/.env.local

3. Update executable paths in backend/.env if the commands are not on PATH.

4. Install the local PDF to Word engine:

   npm run setup:python --workspace backend

5. Start the frontend and backend together:

   npm run dev

6. Open http://localhost:3000. The API runs on http://localhost:4000.

Scripts

npm run dev              # Run frontend and backend in development
npm run dev:frontend     # Run only Next.js
npm run dev:backend      # Run only Express
npm run build            # Build the Next.js production app
npm run check            # Check backend syntax and build frontend
npm run start:frontend   # Start a built Next.js app
npm run start:backend    # Start the Express API

API

All conversion endpoints accept multipart/form-data.

POST /api/convert/word-to-pdf     field: file
POST /api/convert/pdf-to-word     field: file
POST /api/convert/excel-to-pdf    field: file
POST /api/convert/jpg-to-pdf      field: files
POST /api/convert/pdf-to-jpg      field: file
POST /api/convert/merge-pdf       field: files
POST /api/convert/split-pdf       field: file
POST /api/convert/compress-pdf    field: file
GET  /api/download/:fileId
GET  /api/health
GET  /api/convert/quota

A successful conversion returns:

{
  "fileId": "random-uuid.pdf",
  "fileName": "document-converted.pdf",
  "downloadUrl": "/api/download/random-uuid.pdf?name=document-converted.pdf",
  "expiresInSeconds": 3600
}

Security behavior

• Maximum upload size is 25MB per file.
• Only PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, JPG, JPEG, and PNG extensions are accepted.
• Each stored file receives a cryptographically random UUID filename.
• Uploaded files are passed as process arguments and are never executed.
• Download IDs are validated and constrained to the converted file directory.
• Source files are removed immediately after conversion.
• Converted files are removed after one hour by the cleanup job.
• Express uses Helmet and a restricted CORS origin.
• Conversion routes enforce 10 successful conversions per IP every 24 hours.

For production, run the backend and frontend behind HTTPS, use a dedicated unprivileged service account, add request rate limiting, and consider isolated conversion workers for stronger process containment.

Docker production deployment

The included Compose stack deploys:

• A standalone Next.js frontend container
• An Express conversion container with LibreOffice, Poppler, Ghostscript, pdf2docx, PyMuPDF, and python-docx installed
• Nginx as the only publicly exposed service
• Certbot volumes and an ACME webroot for Let's Encrypt
• Persistent temporary upload and conversion volumes

The production hostname is pdfeed.com. Point its DNS A/AAAA records to the Docker host before requesting a certificate.

Start the HTTP stack

Create the production environment file:

cp .env.production.example .env

Build and start the application:

docker compose up -d --build
docker compose ps

Nginx initially serves HTTP and exposes /.well-known/acme-challenge/ for certificate validation.

Enable HTTPS

Request the first certificate after DNS is live and ports 80 and 443 are open:

docker compose --profile ssl run --rm certbot
docker compose restart nginx

On restart, the Nginx entrypoint detects the certificate under /etc/letsencrypt/live/pdfeed.com/ and automatically enables:

• HTTPS on port 443
• HTTP-to-HTTPS redirects
• TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3
• HSTS and basic security headers

Renew certificates with:

docker compose --profile ssl run --rm certbot renew
docker compose restart nginx

Schedule those renewal commands with the host's cron or systemd timer. Certbot stores certificates in the letsencrypt_data Docker volume, so they survive container replacement.

Deployment commands

docker compose logs -f
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d --build
docker compose down

Do not use docker compose down -v in production unless you intentionally want to delete certificates and temporary-file volumes.