Using StirlingPDF for homeschooling and owning a business

I self-host a lot of things here at the house and none of them have been as useful as StirlingPDF. Being a business owner, having a tool to manipulate PDFs is a must. But something I haven’t mentioned on this blog is that my wife homeschools our kids. Being a homeschooler means you interact with PDFs multiple times a day from all kinds of sources. StirlingPDF makes it easy for my wife to edit, split, merge, and manipulate PDFs throughout the school day from any device.

And that is the biggest game changer for her. She uses a Linux laptop (Ubuntu Mate) and her Android phone for her homeschooling duties and there are tools available for each platform to do these tasks. But, a web service means a consistent user experience so she can learn the tool inside and out to better perform her work.

The what and how of StirlingPDF

Here’s the description from the StirlingPDF Github:

This is a powerful locally hosted web based PDF manipulation tool using docker that allows you to perform various operations on PDF files, such as splitting merging, converting, reorganizing, adding images, rotating, compressing, and more. This locally hosted web application started as a 100% ChatGPT-made application and has evolved to include a wide range of features to handle all your PDF needs.

It has a ridiculous amount of features. Some that we use on the regular:

• Merge multiple PDFs together.
• Split PDFs into multiple files.
• Remove pages.
• Convert images to PDFs and PDFs to images.
• Convert HTML, Markdown, and URLs to PDF.
• Extract images.

This is just scratching the surface.

I have it deployed using Docker on my homelab and then a fed through my reverse proxy for an easy to remember URL. I do have it blocked to the public internet so it is a LAN-only tool.

How we use it

As I mentioned above my wife homeschools our kids. Well, kind of. She traditionally homeschools our youngest who is in preschool and then she will do the same for Kindergarten. Our next two attend online school that is provided by our state’s public schools. Although it is online and they have teachers, my wife is still heavily involved and runs it like she is homeschooling.

The source of the education material typically comes in large PDFs with dozens or even hundreds of pages. In the past she would have to navigate a bunch of different tools to organize and manipulate them the way she wanted. Using StirlingPDF makes it so much easier so she can spend more time instructing.

Side note: One of the best investments we made in the last few years was a printer. We have an Epson EcoTank ET-2720 and absolutely love it. Not only is it good for school and my business, but it comes in handy so often for all kinds of things. I know printers are notorious for being shitty. But, we’ve had a great experience with the EcoTank printers. Seriously, get a printer.

Being in contracting we deal with a lot of PDFs, too. Most of our vendors provide equipment and product specs exclusively in PDF format. Plus, when we create proposals, estimates, and invoices are in PDF format as well, which need to be edited on occasion. I use Tailscale to access my local network and then use StirlingPDF when I need it.

It is seriously one of the best services I self-host and definitely encourage you to check it out. Its just a Docker container away.

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