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Alex Taitague Building Products, Learning in Public
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./ the-pdf-merger.md

PDF Stitcher

build

Github

PDF Stitcher DarkMode_Screenshot.png

The Problem

My husband was struggling with a simple task: merging PDFs (he does this a lot in his academic work). He didn't want to use those sketchy web apps buried in spammy ads and "pro" paywalls, and he even tried to get ChatGPT to do it for him, but the AI choked on the file processing. It was the perfect opportunity to stop reading about code and actually build a utility that solves a frequent annoyance.

The Solution

I used Gemini to refine a prompt for GitHub Copilot in VS Code, opting for the Claude Opus 4.5 model. Using Copilot’s "plan" mode, I reviewed the logic and hit go. It nearly one-shot the entire app. The only hiccup was a minor error with the merge button, which was an easy fix. Packaging it as a macOS app was straightforward; the whole functional build took maybe 30 minutes.

The Dang Squircle

Ironically, I spent more time on aesthetics than the code. I got sucked into designing an app icon and figuring out how to get the "squircle" shape right for the Mac dock. Between the icon design and finding a physical USB stick to move the final app to my husband’s laptop, the "finishing touches" definitely took the longest part the development. But it's local, ad-free, and it works.