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Stirling PDF

Stirling PDF is a local web interface for working with PDFs. In this project it is exposed as a separate Docker profile for manual PDF review and side-by-side checking in the browser.

Launch

task stirling

docker compose --profile stirling up -d stirling_pdf

After startup, the interface is available at http://localhost:8080.

Configuration

Set these variables in .env:

Variable Purpose
STIRLING_PORT Host port, defaults to 8080
STIRLING_ADMIN_PASSWORD Initial administrator password for the first startup

Example:

STIRLING_PORT="8080"
STIRLING_ADMIN_PASSWORD="stirling"

The admin password is only used on the first start, before anything exists in pdf_diff/stirling/configs. If the container already ran once, changing .env will not rewrite the existing database.

The stirling service in docker-compose.yaml also enables:

  • SECURITY_ENABLELOGIN=true
  • DISABLE_ADDITIONAL_FEATURES=false
  • LANGS=en_GB
task stirling:logs
task stirling:down

Data directories

The profile mounts these directories:

  • pdf_diff/stirling/configs
  • pdf_diff/stirling/logs
  • pdf_diff/stirling/pipeline

They keep settings and logs persistent across container recreation.

When to use it

Stirling PDF is useful when you need to:

  • open a finished PDF in the browser without a local PDF viewer;
  • quickly inspect how a rebuilt document looks;
  • manually compare two PDF versions in separate tabs or windows;
  • share a PDF for review without installing extra tooling.

If you need an automated diff between two commits, the project already has task diff for that workflow.