A small visual PDF maker built with vanilla JavaScript

Tharik — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:04:34 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with browser-only tools lately and built a small visual PDF maker that runs entirely client-side.
The goal was straightforward:
create PDFs from scratch in the browser without logins, servers, or subscriptions.
What it does
The tool lets you:
design a PDF on an A4 canvas
add text, images, and simple shapes
drag and resize elements
export a PDF where text remains selectable
Everything happens in the browser using plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Web: https://artres.in
GitHub repo: https://github.com/Md-Tharik/Artres

Why I built it
While trying a few online PDF tools, I noticed that many export PDFs as images, which makes text impossible to select or copy.
I wanted to understand if it was possible to keep things lightweight while still exporting usable PDFs, so this project became a way to explore that.
Technical notes (brief)
Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS
jsPDF for generating the PDF
Manual mapping between on-screen layout and PDF coordinates
It’s not perfect, and there are still rough edges, especially around mobile interactions and layout consistency.
What it’s not
This isn’t a full PDF editor.
You can’t upload and modify existing PDFs — it’s more of a simple PDF maker.
Feedback welcome
I’d appreciate any suggestions or feedback, especially on:
usability
export behavior
whether the naming makes sense
If you’ve worked on client-side PDF generation before, I’d be interested in hearing how you approached it.
Thanks for reading.

Forem: Tharik

A small visual PDF maker built with vanilla JavaScript