As developers, some of the most rewarding projects are those that solve real-world challenges and make life easier for others.
This is the story of how I created PDFScribe — a tool that turned a frustrating, time consuming task into a simple, automated solution for e-commerce sellers.
Sellers Problem
E-commerce sellers on platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, or Meesho often face big challenges when handling shipping labels.
Let me show you how a shipping label looks:
Now, imagine a seller processing hundreds of orders daily. By the end of the day, they’re left with PDFs containing 100+ shipping labels.
And then, they have to:
- Manually scanning through hundreds of pages
- Separating labels by different delivery partners
- Identifying and grouping exchange orders
- Finding and bundling multi-order shipments
- Cropping out tax invoices from each label
This process isn't just time-consuming, it's mind-numbing and error-prone. One mistake could mean a misrouted package or a delayed shipment.
Solution
To help sellers focus on what truly matters - growing their business. I built PDFScribe. It's a specialized tool that automates the entire shipping label management process.
Here's how PDFScribe works:
Video Preview-
Simple Upload:
Just drag and drop your shipping label PDF -
Automatic Processing:
- Automatically crops out tax invoices
- Identifies and groups labels by delivery partner
- Flags and sorts exchange orders
- Bundles multi-order shipments
Note: This tool was custom-built for the seller and is exclusively available to them, with no public access.
Tech Stack
PDFScribe is built with a modern tech stack designed to be fast, run in the browser, and, most importantly, be easy for users.
Frontend Framework: Next.js
Styling: Tailwind CSS
UI Components: Shadcn
Deployment: Cloudflare
Storage: AWS S3
Key Libraries:
File Upload: react-dropzone
PDF Parsing: langchain
PDF Cropping: pdfjs-dist
PDF Grouping: pdf-lib
Zipping Files: jszip
Learnings
Focus on solving a niche problem that a small group cares deeply about, not a broad one no one feels strongly about. - Sam Altman
PDFScribe isn’t built for everyone; it’s specifically designed for Meesho sellers.
I learned a lot while building this project. At first, I thought it would be easy. But working with PDF files was tricky. The main problem was that processing big PDFs on servers would cost too much money. After lots of research, I found a way to do everything in the web browser instead. This saved money and worked better.
This taught me how important it is to find good solutions to specific problems.