I Built a Free PDF Tool for Students in India — Here’s What I Learned 🚀

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

I want to share a short story about how I started building AeroTools, a free PDF‑tools website for students and professionals in India.

Why a new tool?

Many students and job applicants need to upload PDFs for:

• Government forms
• College admissions
• Job applications
• Exams

Existing websites often:

• Require login
• Limit usage
• Show many ads

This was frustrating, so I decided to create my own solution.

Tech stack

• Frontend: React
• Backend: Node.js + Express
• PDF processing: Various libraries (e.g., pdf-lib, pdfjs)

Main goals

• Secure
• Free
• Mobile‑friendly

Features

AeroTools provides the following functions without watermarks or login requirements:

• Compress PDF
• Convert PDF to Word / Excel
• Merge & split PDFs

Website:

Building vs. Getting Users

• Building the tool was straightforward.
• Gaining users was challenging: initially 0 visitors, 0 feedback, and low motivation.

Lessons Learned

• Share your work early and often.
• Listen to users and iterate based on their feedback.
• Improve daily; small, consistent updates matter.

Key takeaways

• Simple UI > Fancy UI
• Speed matters a lot
• Trust is everything
• Marketing is as important as coding

Call to Action

I’m still improving AeroTools. If you have time, please try it and let me know:

• What feels confusing?
• What feature is missing?
• What should I improve first?

Thanks for reading!

Happy coding!