PDF toolkit for Windows100% on deviceFree beta
Every PDF tool. None of the uploads.
Merge, split, compress, OCR, protect, redact, watermark and fill & sign your PDFs: a full toolkit in one focused Windows app. Compression and OCR run on Ghostscript and Tesseract, bundled right inside the installer. Every byte stays on your PC. Nothing is ever uploaded.
v0.1.1 beta · Windows 10 (1809+) & 11 · 64-bit · Installs without admin rights · No account
01 How it works
Open, pick a tool, done.
Open your PDF
Drag a file (or several) onto the window from File Explorer, or press Ctrl O to browse. Stapl shows page thumbnails right away.
Pick a tool
Search the toolbox or press Ctrl K to jump straight to merge, compress, OCR, redact, protect, and more. Each opens a focused workspace with exactly the controls it needs.
Save
Stapl writes the result wherever you choose and offers to show it in File Explorer or open it directly. Every byte stayed on your PC.
02 Features
A full PDF toolkit. One focused window.
Everything you'd reach for a sketchy web converter to do, except nothing is ever uploaded, and the engines doing the work ship right inside the installer.
Merge & combine
Stitch several PDFs into one. Drag files into the exact order you want before merging.
Organize & split
Reorder, delete and extract pages from a visual page grid, or split a document into separate files.
Compress
Shrink heavy PDFs with clear quality tiers. Compression runs on Ghostscript, bundled inside the installer: no separate install, no upload.
Bundled Ghostscript
OCR your scans
Add an invisible, selectable text layer to a scanned document so it becomes searchable and copy-pasteable. OCR runs on Tesseract, bundled inside the installer, entirely on-device.
Bundled Tesseract
Redaction that actually redacts
Draw a box over sensitive text and it's gone: Stapl rasterizes and rebuilds the page, destroying what's underneath instead of just covering it. Zoom into the page to place boxes precisely over small text or signatures.
Truly removed
Protect & unlock
Add an AES-128 password to a PDF, or remove one you already know. The password never leaves your device.
Watermark & number
Stamp a text watermark across pages, or add sequential page numbers to a document.
PDF ↔ Images
Export pages to PNG or JPG, or build a fresh PDF from a folder of images. Rendering runs through the same bundled Ghostscript engine.
Metadata, crop & batch
Rotate pages, edit or strip metadata, adjust page boxes with Crop, then run a tool across a whole folder of files at once with Batch, reported file by file.
Extract Text
Pull a PDF's selectable text into a plain .txt file, entirely on your device.
Fill & Sign
Type into a PDF's form fields and drop your signature onto the page, typed in a handwriting-style font or drawn with your mouse or trackpad.
100% on your PC
No document, and no page of a document, is ever uploaded. Reading, editing, compressing and OCR-ing PDFs makes no network connection at all. Stapl's only network calls are an update check and, only if you enter one, a business-license check, never your files.
Privacy
13 languages
English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (BR), Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Korean, with an in-app picker to switch anytime.
Localized
Built for everyone
A Ctrl K command palette reaches every tool by keyboard, dialogs trap and return focus correctly, and contrast has been audited against WCAG 2.1 AA in both light and dark.
WCAG 2.1 AA
03 Everything in the box
Merge
Organize
Rotate
Compress
OCR
Unlock
Protect
Watermark
Page Numbers
Crop
Redact
Metadata
PDF → Images
Images → PDF
Batch
Extract Text
Fill & Sign
04 Beta
You're testing the first Windows build.
Stapl has been on the Mac for a while, with seventeen tools and a much longer version history. This is the Windows port's first private build, rebuilt on Tauri, with Ghostscript and Tesseract doing the heavy lifting instead of macOS frameworks.
What would help most
OCR accuracy
Run a real scanned document through OCR and check whether the text layer it produces is actually right, especially anything other than English.
Large-PDF performance
Compress and OCR run through bundled Ghostscript and Tesseract. Tell me how a genuinely large or heavy PDF behaves, and how long it takes.
The install & SmartScreen experience
Whether SmartScreen let you through, whether the shortcut and taskbar icon look right, and whether WebView2 installed cleanly if you didn't already have it.
Anything that looks wrong
Clipped text, an odd translation, a dialog you couldn't reach with the keyboard, or a tool that behaves differently than its Mac counterpart.
06 Pricing
Free for everyone.
Stapl for Windows
Free forever
Personal and commercial use included
- The full app, every feature
- No account, no nag screens
- Free updates forever
- Personal and commercial use, no license required
07 Download & install
Get set up in about a minute.
Run the installer and Stapl lands in your own user folder: no admin password, no UAC prompt.
Version 0.1.1 beta · Free updates forever
Windows 10 (version 1809 or later) or Windows 11 · 64-bit
Ghostscript and Tesseract ship inside the installer, so there's nothing separate to download for compression or OCR to work. Stapl's interface is drawn with the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, and the installer carries the full offline WebView2 installer bundled inside it. If your PC doesn't already have WebView2 (Windows 11 always does; most Windows 10 machines do via Windows Update), Stapl's installer sets it up for you automatically, with no separate download and no internet connection required.
No admin rights needed
Stapl installs per-user into your own
%LOCALAPPDATA% folder, so there's no UAC prompt and no argument with your IT department. Uninstall from Settings → Apps → Installed apps like anything else.Windows may warn you the first time. Here's the honest story.
This is a brand-new beta build, and Microsoft's SmartScreen filter builds trust in a file gradually, based on how many people have downloaded it: a fresh build starts with none of that reputation regardless of whether it's signed. Until this exact file has been downloaded enough times, you may see a blue "Windows protected your PC" box.
- Click More info
- Check the publisher name shown
- Click Run anyway
08 FAQ
Common questions.
Is Stapl really free?
Personal use is free forever: every tool, unlimited files, no account, no trial timer, no watermarks. It is free for commercial use at work too, with no license to buy and no account.
Does Stapl upload my PDFs anywhere?
No. Opening, editing, compressing and OCR-ing a document all run entirely on your PC and make no network connection at all. Stapl makes exactly one kind of connection, and it does not involve your documents: a check with twoplus11.com about once a week for a new version (which you can turn off), sending only the app version.
When I redact a PDF, is the text really gone?
Yes. Stapl doesn't just draw a black box over the text. It rasterizes the affected pages and rebuilds them, so the underlying text and images beneath a redaction are destroyed, not merely hidden. You can't select or recover what was under the mark. (This beta's Redact is manual: draw the boxes yourself, with a zoom view to place them precisely. It doesn't yet auto-find things like emails or phone numbers the way the Mac build's newest release does.)
What encryption does Protect use?
AES-128. The password is set as both the user and owner password, and never leaves your device. Unlock removes a password you already know.
Does Stapl need the WebView2 Runtime installed separately?
No. The installer bundles the complete WebView2 offline installer inside it, so if your PC doesn't already have WebView2, Stapl's own installer sets it up silently: no separate download, no internet connection needed for that step.
Why did Windows show a blue "protected your PC" warning?
Because this is a new beta build with little to no download history yet: SmartScreen builds trust in a specific file over time and downloads. Click More info → check the publisher → Run anyway. See the install section for the full explanation.
How do I update Stapl?
Stapl checks for a new version automatically about once a week, and badges the toolbar when one is available. You can also check on demand from Check for Updates. In this beta, updating means clicking through to the download page and running the new installer yourself; it does not yet install itself in place the way the Mac build does. You can turn the automatic check off entirely.
How is this different from the Mac version?
Same tools, same on-device philosophy. The engine was rebuilt on Tauri and Windows APIs, with Ghostscript and Tesseract standing in for the frameworks the Mac build uses. This beta is genuinely behind the Mac app in a couple of places: Redact doesn't yet auto-find emails, phone numbers or card numbers the way the Mac build's latest version does, and updates don't yet install themselves in place.
Where do my settings live, and what does uninstalling remove?
Preferences sit in
%APPDATA%\com.twoplus11.stapl. Uninstalling removes the app itself from your %LOCALAPPDATA% folder; delete the AppData folder too if you want every trace gone. Nothing is written outside your user account.