PDFKeeper is free, open source software that provides a storage and management solution for PDF documents.
PDFKeeper is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3 .
Download and install from GitHub or FossHub or
install via Windows Package Manager (winget install pdfkeeper).
PDFKeeper began as an idea to solve a personal document storage issue. With both digital and paper documents stored in many places, it was becoming a challenge to locate documents quickly, especially at tax time. What proved to be an even bigger challenge was locating a free solution that could store PDF documents in a free, full-text search ready, relational database that could be accessed by anyone on the local area network. In addition, I had a requirement to store notes in the database with the PDF document that would also be searchable.
In early 2009, after being unsuccessful in locating a solution, I started building PDFKeeper, an open-source application that would use a free, full-text search ready, relational database for PDF document and notes storage, targeted at the Small Office Home Office and Small Business community. To develop the application quickly, I decided to build it with Open Object REXX , a scripting language with GUI support that I was very familiar with from my OS/2 days. As for the database, I chose to use Oracle® Database XE since it was free and was capable of indexing PDF documents; but it was my plan to expand database compatibility to other platforms over time.
Here are some development highlights by year: (for more details, please see the Changelog )
The first version of PDFKeeper is released to the public on Google Code .
PDFKeeper receives free testing services from nResult , a software testing company that was providing free software testing services to open-source projects; PDFKeeper is redesigned and rewritten as a WinForms application in VB.NET for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 using SharpDevelop .
PDFKeeper moves to CodePlex ; .NET Framework 4.0 is targeted; all documentation is replaced by new help system; setup is migrated from InnoSetup to Windows Installer using WiX Toolset .
PDFKeeper moves to GitHub; solution is migrated to Visual Studio 2013; .NET Framework 4.6.1 is targeted.
Source code, user interface, help file, and setup is completely redesigned and rewritten; setup is now per-user.
PDFKeeper homepage is now online; the redesigned PDFKeeper is released with additional search capabilities; Oracle® Database compatibility is expanded to 18c, 12c, and 11g Release 2.
PDFKeeper logo is redesigned; 10th year anniversary edition is released; Category and Flag features are added; Oracle® Database compatibility is expanded to 19c and 18c XE.
PDFKeeper repository is included in the 2020 GitHub Archive Program ; Solution is upgraded to Visual Studio 2019 ; .NET Framework 4.8 is targeted; 32-bit support is discontinued; user interface is redesigned to improve document searching; source code goes through an extensive refactoring.
Integrated, single user database option using SQLite is added; document records can be categorized by Tax Year; text annotations are now indexed; user interface layout is changed; PDFKeeper is added to the Windows Package Manager manifest repository and can now be installed via winget; text from image-only PDF documents is now extracted using OCR and indexed.
PDFKeeper source code is rearchitected into separate layers; Windows 10 (64-bit) or higher is now required; Oracle® Database compatibility is expanded to 21c and 21c XE; Oracle® Cloud Autonomous Database 21c and 19c compatibility is added; new features are added; OCR text extraction is improved.
User interface is redesigned; t he entire application is rearchitected using the Model-View-Presenter-ViewModel pattern for better maintainability; a ll non-UI code is rewritten in C# and merged into a single library; a ll PDF viewer code is rewritten in C# and is contained in a separate library; Title, Author, and Subject editing has been added.
Thank you for reading!
Project Owner and Maintainer
If you like PDFKeeper, please support the project by donating using PayPal, Debit, or Credit Card .
PDFKeeper is a volunteer software project with expenses that are paid for with personal funds. Your donation will help with those expenses and support future development.
