Privacy
In plain English: what BenchPDF does with your files, what it doesn't, and what this website collects.
The short version
BenchPDF converts and edits your documents on your own PC. It doesn't upload your files, doesn't require an account, and doesn't run analytics — in the app, or on this website.
What the app does
When you open BenchPDF, it starts a small web server on your own computer, reachable only at the address 127.0.0.1 — a special address that always means “this computer.” It is not reachable from the internet, from your network, or from any other device. BenchPDF uses that local server to give you the drag-and-drop page you convert files with; the page and the conversion both run on the same machine as your files.
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint conversions work by driving your own installed copies of those applications in the background. If Office isn't installed, those specific conversions are disabled with an explanation — BenchPDF never tries to substitute its own re-implementation of Office's rendering.
Editing a PDF works the same way: the page is rendered and edited inside the local server's page, and the exported PDF is written straight to your disk.
The one network request
BenchPDF makes exactly one kind of network call: converting a web page to PDF has to fetch that page, the same way your own browser would if you opened the address and pressed Print. It fetches only the address you give it, using a local headless browser, and contacts nothing else. Every other conversion — PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and images — makes no network request of any kind.
What BenchPDF doesn't do
- It doesn't upload your files anywhere, ever, for any conversion other than the web-page exception above (and even then, only the URL you provide is fetched — not your files).
- It doesn't require an account, sign-in, or internet connection to convert or edit a file.
- It doesn't include analytics, crash reporting, or telemetry of any kind.
- It doesn't store your files anywhere beyond the working folder it uses during a conversion and the output you choose to keep.
This website
This site is a set of static pages with no analytics, no tracking pixels, no cookies, and no third-party scripts — everything, including the fonts, is served from the same place as the page itself. That said, like any website, the server that hosts these pages inherently logs basic request information (such as IP address and timestamp) as part of normal web hosting; that logging is standard infrastructure behaviour, not something BenchPDF adds, and we don't layer any analytics on top of it.
Office automation reliability
Occasionally Word, Excel, or PowerPoint can show a dialog during automation — a password prompt, or a recovery notice — that blocks a single conversion. BenchPDF has a built-in timeout: if Office doesn't respond within 30–90 seconds, it closes that one stuck attempt, reports a clear error for that file, and is immediately ready for your next conversion. This is a reliability detail, not a privacy one, but it's worth knowing if a conversion ever times out.
Licensing and source availability
BenchPDF bundles PyMuPDF, which is licensed under the GNU AGPL-3.0. Because of that, BenchPDF's own source is made available under the same license — the exact link is in the app's About dialog and in this site's changelog and GitHub repository.