Edit text in place, sign, redact, reorganize. True content-stream rewrite, not stamp-on-top.
LaunchEdit, sign, redact, and reorganize PDF files in your browser. The Adobe Acrobat alternative that runs on your device — no upload, no subscription.
Pixel-perfect PDF diff with word-level text view, metadata + form-field compare, ruler, and exclusion zones.
LaunchSide-by-side or overlay PDF diff with a document-type selector — Document (contracts, reports), AEC / Blueprint (drawings, schematics), or Image-Scan. Highlights pixel-level differences plus a word-level text diff in a modal.
Open any PCB Gerber bundle in your browser. Gerber X2, Excellon, layer compare, snap-to-pad measure, snapshot URLs.
LaunchOpen RS-274X / X2 Gerber and Excellon files. Inspect layers, measure traces, export to PNG / SVG / DXF.
Compress, merge, split, convert, and manipulate PDF files.
Resize, compress, convert, and transform images.
Format, encode, decode, and validate code and data — safe for production secrets.
Convert, compress, and cut audio and video — MP3, WAV, MP4, WebM, Opus — all in your browser, nothing uploads.
Sourdough baker math, canning processing times — kitchen math you should not memorize.
AES-256 file encryption and self-destructing encrypted notes.
Analyze packet captures and run sysadmin diagnostics in your browser — nothing uploads. PCAP Analyzer ships first.
Chart-overlay technical analysis and precision financial math — your screenshots and numbers never leave your device.
Open CAD, BIM, medical, and enterprise files without paying $300-30K/year for the native software. Gerber Viewer ships first.
Most "free online" PDF tools quietly upload your file to their server. Here is the 30-second check you can run in any browser, with screenshots, that proves whether a given tool ever sends your file off your device.
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A .step or .igs file in your inbox and no SolidWorks? What these neutral CAD formats are, why they resist opening, and how to view and measure them free.
WebGPU is the browser API that exposes the GPU directly — explicit pipelines, compute shaders, lower overhead. What it is, and why on-device AI now runs in a tab.
A 3D mesh file stores a model as a list of vertices and triangles. STL, OBJ, PLY, GLB, and 3MF are the formats you meet most. Loft opens all five in one browser viewer — orbit, m…
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC costs $19.99/month on the annual plan ($240/year), $29.99 month-to-month. That is real money for a tool many users only need occasionally. Here is an honest …
A STEP file is the neutral 3D CAD format every package exports for sharing — solid geometry plus structure, not just a triangle mesh. Loft opens .step and .stp files in your brow…
Skip the photo studio and skip the App Store. A browser-based ID photo maker turns a selfie into a passport-spec photo on any phone or laptop. Here is what works, what the per-co…
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC installs at roughly 1.55 GB and recommends 8 GB of free disk space plus 8 GB of RAM. Loft Tools runs the same operations on a few megabytes of WebAssembly in…
Bluebeam Revu is the AEC industry standard for PDF markup, takeoffs, and punch-list workflows. Loft does not try to replace it. This post explains where Revu is the right tool, w…
An online CAD viewer that needs no upload parses the file inside your browser tab instead of sending it to a server. A STEP file goes into local memory, a WebAssembly kernel read…
A DXF file is AutoCAD's text-based drawing interchange format — lines, arcs, circles and polylines on named layers. Loft's DXF viewer online opens one in your browser tab, no Aut…
iLovePDF is one of the most-used online PDF tools — 18 free tools, $4/month Premium, capable feature set. Loft Tools does many of the same operations without uploading the file. …
Three of the most-used online PDF tools — Smallpdf, PDF24, iLovePDF — all publish reasonable privacy policies. The policies are also broader than the marketing suggests. Here is …
A 3MF file is the 3D Manufacturing Format that Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, Cura, and OrcaSlicer write as their native project format. Unlike STL, it carries colour, multi-part ass…
Gerber files are the industry standard for printed-circuit-board manufacturing. Reading one normally requires a desktop CAD package. Loft has a Gerber viewer that runs in any pho…
A Progressive Web App is a web app that can be installed to the home screen, run offline, and feel like a native app. Sometimes that is enough. Sometimes a real native app is the…
An STL file is a triangle-mesh description of a 3D model, the de-facto format every slicer reads before a print. Loft opens binary or ASCII STL right in the browser tab — orbit, …
A browser tab cannot use unlimited RAM. On iOS Safari the cap sits around 200 MB. Big PDFs and big videos hit that ceiling fast. Here is how we detect it, work around it, and whe…
A GLB file is the binary form of glTF, the Khronos Group 3D format used by Blender exports, Sketchfab downloads, and web/AR pipelines. Loft opens .glb and .gltf in the browser wi…
A Wavefront OBJ is a plain-text 3D mesh format that stores vertices, faces, and texture coordinates. Almost every 3D package exports it. Loft Tools opens .obj files in a browser …
PaddleOCR is one of the most accurate OCR engines available under a permissive Apache 2.0 license. Loft runs it entirely in the browser, downloading the model weights once to you…
PDF.js handles reading and rendering. pdf-lib handles creating and editing. Together they replace what most online PDF tools do on a server. Here is the engineering reason we wen…
A PLY file is the Stanford Polygon format — the container LiDAR scanners, photogrammetry apps, and 3D research datasets dump their points and meshes into. Loft opens binary or AS…
The "everything is local" claim has edges. A few specific things on Loft cross the network because they have to. Here is the honest list of what does — none of it your file — and…
A Content-Security-Policy tells the browser which destinations a page is allowed to send data to, and the browser enforces it — not the site. For a file tool, that turns "we prom…
IndexedDB is the browser's built-in local database. When a web app "saves" something across sessions, it usually lives in IndexedDB on your device. Here is what it is, what Loft …
A service worker is a script the browser keeps running in the background, separate from the page. It is the piece that lets a web page work without the network. Here is how it wo…
A Web Worker is a second thread the browser gives a webpage so heavy work does not freeze the interface. It is one of the two browser features that make local-first PDF tools pos…
WebAssembly is the technology that lets a browser tab run code at speeds comparable to a native desktop app. It is why browser-side PDF, image, and video tools work as well as th…
Loft Tools runs in the browser on every modern phone — iPhone Safari, Android Chrome, Samsung Internet — without anything to install from an app store. The mechanics, the memory …
A "cloud" PDF tool stops working the moment your Wi-Fi blips. A browser-side tool that uses a service worker keeps running. Here is what makes the difference, how to set it up on…
When you close a Loft Tools tab in the middle of editing a PDF, where does the work go? Three answers depending on what you were doing, and the rule for getting your work out bef…
The short answer: yes, with a browser-side tool that processes the file locally. The longer answer covers what "safe" means, where the real risks sit, and what to actually verify…
A "free online" PDF tool is rarely free of cost. The cost just gets paid in a different currency: your email, your attention, your file metadata, sometimes your file. Here is the…
Every online PDF tool falls into one of two architectures: your file gets uploaded to a server, or it stays inside the browser tab on your machine. Here is how to tell which one …
A common point of confusion: if the tool is online, isn't your file online too? No. The code travels over the internet once, runs on your machine, and your file never enters the …
Most free online tools collect your email before letting you use them. Loft has no signup, no account, no email gate on any tool. Here is why we built it that way, what we give u…
A .step or .igs file in your inbox and no SolidWorks? What these neutral CAD formats are, why they resist opening, and how to view and measure them free.
WebGPU is the browser API that exposes the GPU directly — explicit pipelines, compute shaders, lower overhead. What it is, and why on-device AI now runs in a tab.
Most "free online" PDF tools quietly upload your file to their server. Here is the 30-second check you can run in any browser, with screenshots, that proves whether a given tool ever sends your file…
A 3D mesh file stores a model as a list of vertices and triangles. STL, OBJ, PLY, GLB, and 3MF are the formats you meet most. Loft opens all five in one browser viewer — orbit, measure, screenshot —…
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC costs $19.99/month on the annual plan ($240/year), $29.99 month-to-month. That is real money for a tool many users only need occasionally. Here is an honest breakdown of what th…
A STEP file is the neutral 3D CAD format every package exports for sharing — solid geometry plus structure, not just a triangle mesh. Loft opens .step and .stp files in your browser tab with a real …
Skip the photo studio and skip the App Store. A browser-based ID photo maker turns a selfie into a passport-spec photo on any phone or laptop. Here is what works, what the per-country rules look lik…
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC installs at roughly 1.55 GB and recommends 8 GB of free disk space plus 8 GB of RAM. Loft Tools runs the same operations on a few megabytes of WebAssembly inside a browser tab. …
Bluebeam Revu is the AEC industry standard for PDF markup, takeoffs, and punch-list workflows. Loft does not try to replace it. This post explains where Revu is the right tool, where Loft fits the s…
An online CAD viewer that needs no upload parses the file inside your browser tab instead of sending it to a server. A STEP file goes into local memory, a WebAssembly kernel reads it, and the geomet…
A DXF file is AutoCAD's text-based drawing interchange format — lines, arcs, circles and polylines on named layers. Loft's DXF viewer online opens one in your browser tab, no AutoCAD licence and no …
iLovePDF is one of the most-used online PDF tools — 18 free tools, $4/month Premium, capable feature set. Loft Tools does many of the same operations without uploading the file. Here is the side-by-…
Three of the most-used online PDF tools — Smallpdf, PDF24, iLovePDF — all publish reasonable privacy policies. The policies are also broader than the marketing suggests. Here is what each one allows…
A 3MF file is the 3D Manufacturing Format that Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, Cura, and OrcaSlicer write as their native project format. Unlike STL, it carries colour, multi-part assemblies, and printer…
Gerber files are the industry standard for printed-circuit-board manufacturing. Reading one normally requires a desktop CAD package. Loft has a Gerber viewer that runs in any phone browser. Here is …
A Progressive Web App is a web app that can be installed to the home screen, run offline, and feel like a native app. Sometimes that is enough. Sometimes a real native app is the right call. Here is…
An STL file is a triangle-mesh description of a 3D model, the de-facto format every slicer reads before a print. Loft opens binary or ASCII STL right in the browser tab — orbit, measure, screenshot …
A browser tab cannot use unlimited RAM. On iOS Safari the cap sits around 200 MB. Big PDFs and big videos hit that ceiling fast. Here is how we detect it, work around it, and where we still fall sho…
A GLB file is the binary form of glTF, the Khronos Group 3D format used by Blender exports, Sketchfab downloads, and web/AR pipelines. Loft opens .glb and .gltf in the browser with materials intact …
A Wavefront OBJ is a plain-text 3D mesh format that stores vertices, faces, and texture coordinates. Almost every 3D package exports it. Loft Tools opens .obj files in a browser tab — orbit, measure…
PaddleOCR is one of the most accurate OCR engines available under a permissive Apache 2.0 license. Loft runs it entirely in the browser, downloading the model weights once to your device. Here is ho…
PDF.js handles reading and rendering. pdf-lib handles creating and editing. Together they replace what most online PDF tools do on a server. Here is the engineering reason we went with them, and wha…
A PLY file is the Stanford Polygon format — the container LiDAR scanners, photogrammetry apps, and 3D research datasets dump their points and meshes into. Loft opens binary or ASCII PLY in a browser…
The "everything is local" claim has edges. A few specific things on Loft cross the network because they have to. Here is the honest list of what does — none of it your file — and what never crosses …
A Content-Security-Policy tells the browser which destinations a page is allowed to send data to, and the browser enforces it — not the site. For a file tool, that turns "we promise not to upload yo…
IndexedDB is the browser's built-in local database. When a web app "saves" something across sessions, it usually lives in IndexedDB on your device. Here is what it is, what Loft uses it for, and wha…
A service worker is a script the browser keeps running in the background, separate from the page. It is the piece that lets a web page work without the network. Here is how it works, how Loft uses i…
A Web Worker is a second thread the browser gives a webpage so heavy work does not freeze the interface. It is one of the two browser features that make local-first PDF tools possible. Here is what …
WebAssembly is the technology that lets a browser tab run code at speeds comparable to a native desktop app. It is why browser-side PDF, image, and video tools work as well as they do in 2026. Here …
Loft Tools runs in the browser on every modern phone — iPhone Safari, Android Chrome, Samsung Internet — without anything to install from an app store. The mechanics, the memory limits to be aware o…
A "cloud" PDF tool stops working the moment your Wi-Fi blips. A browser-side tool that uses a service worker keeps running. Here is what makes the difference, how to set it up on Loft, and what genu…
When you close a Loft Tools tab in the middle of editing a PDF, where does the work go? Three answers depending on what you were doing, and the rule for getting your work out before you walk away.
The short answer: yes, with a browser-side tool that processes the file locally. The longer answer covers what "safe" means, where the real risks sit, and what to actually verify before you compress…
A "free online" PDF tool is rarely free of cost. The cost just gets paid in a different currency: your email, your attention, your file metadata, sometimes your file. Here is the catalogue of curren…
Every online PDF tool falls into one of two architectures: your file gets uploaded to a server, or it stays inside the browser tab on your machine. Here is how to tell which one a given tool uses, w…
A common point of confusion: if the tool is online, isn't your file online too? No. The code travels over the internet once, runs on your machine, and your file never enters the network. Here is the…
Most free online tools collect your email before letting you use them. Loft has no signup, no account, no email gate on any tool. Here is why we built it that way, what we give up by not asking, and…
