Building My First Web Service: Splitting PDFs

Earlier this week, I was trying to split PDFs in the hundreds of pages into smaller chunks. I only needed certain parts of them. From what I learned, sometimes partitioning these huge PDFs into smaller chunks helps me read them more efficiently.

This task of dividing large PDFs posed a unique challenge. I often read on the go, and dealing with these bulky files on mobile devices could have been better. The constant scrolling, trying to find the right page, and the phone’s struggle to load heavy files quickly became frustrating. More importantly, I realized this was not just my problem; it might be a common hurdle for anyone dealing with extensive digital documents.

What if I had my dedicated app to do just that? Split PDFs into multiple pages quickly and easily. Although daunting, I was motivated by this challenge since I had zero experience building and developing web apps.

I envisioned a web service tailored for ease and efficiency. The concept was simple: a page where users can effortlessly upload their large PDFs (well, here I am talking about a limit of 10MB), select the specific pages they need to split the PDFs into and download the resulting smaller files directly. This tool would save time and make information access more manageable and tailored to individual needs.

Writing the Python code was simple. The hard part was figuring out how to launch or deploy it. After countless hours of searching the web, watching YouTube videos, I finally managed to deploy it.

This entire process reminded me of the intrinsic fun of programming — the endless possibilities of learning something new. It’s akin to building your very first application; there’s a sense of achievement and excitement. Then, as you continue, you find yourself constantly improving and developing something even better in the next iteration.

Let this journey serve as a source of motivation, especially for those just starting. Remember, everyone starts somewhere, and each step, no matter how small, is a progression towards something better.

If you’d like to try it and share feedback, you can do so at PDF Splitter.

P.S. It might take a little while to load since it is deployed using a free service, and every time it runs, it will have to spin up the entire service :).

Cheers!