A Windows desktop app for working with PDF files — compression, conversion, merging, extraction, rotation, and basic security tools. Everything runs locally. No uploads, no accounts, no cloud.
Built because iLovePDF is useful but I didn't want to feed my files to a website.
Grab the latest release from the Releases page and extract the zip. You'll get:
SKARS-V2.0.0/
├── SKARS-V2.0.0.exe ← run this
├── app/ ← app files, don't delete
├── runtime/ ← bundled Java runtime, don't delete
└── README.md
Java is bundled inside the zip. You don't need to install anything.
SKARS isn't signed with a paid certificate, so Windows SmartScreen will block it on first launch. It's safe to run — here's what to do:
SmartScreen popup ("Windows protected your PC"):
- Click More info
- Click Run anyway
If Windows Defender flags it as a threat, click See details → Allow on device. This happens because the exe is new and unrecognized, not because it's actually malicious. The source code is fully open on this repo if you want to check it yourself.
Four modes depending on what you're working with:
| Mode | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Lossless | The PDF is already clean and you just want it slightly smaller without any quality loss |
| Balanced | General use — good middle ground between size and readability |
| Small Size | You need to hit an upload or email size limit |
| Aggressive Scan | The PDF is a scan or image-heavy — goes hard on recompression, supports color, grayscale, or B&W output |
Supported input formats:
- Images (JPG, PNG, etc.)
- Text files — plain TXT, Markdown, CSV, logs
- DOCX
- HTML
- Code files (with line numbers)
- PPTX
DOCX conversion tries engines in this order: LibreOffice → Microsoft Word (if installed) → docx4j → built-in fallback. Fidelity depends on which one ends up running, but LibreOffice gives the best results.
- Merge — combine multiple PDFs into one
- Extract pages — pull out a range of pages into a separate file
- Rotate — rotate all pages in a PDF
- Unlock — create a decrypted copy when you know the password
- Protect — add an open password to a PDF
Note: SKARS only unlocks PDFs when you already know the password. It does not crack or brute-force anything.
src/main/java/dev/sooryathejas/skars
├── SkarsApp.java
├── service/ ← PDF, conversion, compression, and security logic
├── ui/ ← Swing desktop UI
└── util/ ← Shared file and PDF helpers
All processing happens on your machine. No file ever leaves your computer. No account needed, no telemetry, no cloud API calls for core features.
If SKARS saves you time, you can support it here:
Built by Soorya Thejas