Terms of Service

1Preamble & Acceptance of Terms

This agreement (hereinafter referred to as the "Terms", "Terms of Service", or "Agreement") is entered into between GentlePDF Inc. (referred to herein as "GentlePDF", "we", "us", or "our"), a Delaware corporation, and any person or entity accessing or using our websites, software development kits (SDKs), application programming interfaces (APIs), mobile applications, and web services (collectively, the "Platform" or "Services").

By creating an account, registering via email or third-party single sign-on (such as Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn), dragging or uploading any document to the platform, clicking any button indicating acceptance, or simply accessing any URL hosted under the domain gentlepdf.com or associated subdomains, you explicitly and unconditionally signify your agreement to these Terms. If you do not consent to every provision contained herein, you must immediately terminate your use of the Services and refrain from uploading any files or information.

If you are entering into this Agreement on behalf of a company, partnership, government body, or other legal entity, you represent and warrant that you possess the full legal authority to bind such entity to these Terms. In such circumstances, the terms "User", "you", or "your" shall refer to that legal entity.

2User Eligibility & Account Registration

2.1 Eligibility: You must be at least sixteen (16) years of age, or the age of legal majority in your jurisdiction of residence, whichever is greater, to register an account or use our Services. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction, you may only use GentlePDF under the direct supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms.

2.2 Account Credentials: When creating an account, you must provide accurate, current, and complete registration information. You are solely responsible for maintaining the strict confidentiality of your username, password, API tokens, and social identity credentials. Any action, upload, conversion, or transaction performed under your account credentials will be deemed to have been executed by you.

2.3 Social Single Sign-On (OAuth): GentlePDF enables authentication via third-party providers including Google LLC, Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook), and Microsoft Corporation (LinkedIn). When utilizing social authentication, you authorize GentlePDF to access designated profile information (such as your public display name, email address, and profile avatar) in accordance with the authorization scopes granted by you during sign-in. You must comply with all third-party terms when authenticating through these channels.

2.4 Unauthorized Access: You agree to notify GentlePDF immediately at security@gentlepdf.com upon discovering or suspecting any unauthorized use of your account or security breach. GentlePDF cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your login credentials.

3Permitted Uses & License Grant

3.1 Limited License: Subject to your continuous compliance with these Terms, GentlePDF grants you a worldwide, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable, and non-sublicensable limited license to access and interact with our web applications and PDF utilities strictly for personal, educational, or internal commercial document manipulation purposes.

3.2 Core Feature Access: GentlePDF provides tools including, without limitation, merging multiple PDF files into unified documents, splitting PDF archives into custom page ranges, compressing PDF files to optimize payload sizes, converting PDF documents to Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx), HTML, or image formats (PNG, JPG), encrypting documents with custom passwords, adding dynamic watermarks, and rotating document orientations.

3.3 Reservation of Rights: All rights not expressly granted to you under this Section 3 are reserved exclusively by GentlePDF and its licensors. You obtain no ownership, title, or patent rights in or to the platform architecture, algorithms, user interface styling, or underlying codebase.

4Prohibited Activities & Fair Use Policy

You covenant, promise, and warrant that you will not participate in or encourage any of the following prohibited behaviors:

• Malicious Code Injection: Uploading, linking, or processing documents containing executable payloads, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, ransomware, keyloggers, corrupted macros, or any code intended to harm, disrupt, or exploit GentlePDF infrastructure or other users.
• Abusive Automated Requests: Utilizing automated bots, scrapers, spiders, headless browsers, or load-generation scripts to bombard GentlePDF endpoints without written API licensing consent.
• Reverse Engineering: Decompiling, reverse engineering, disassembling, deciphering, or attempting to extract the underlying source code, proprietary algorithms, or mathematical compression logic of the Services.
• Infringing or Unlawful Material: Uploading or distributing documents that infringe upon any patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral right, or privacy rights of any third party, or that contain defamatory, obscene, child-exploitative, harassing, or terrorist material.
• Service Reselling: Mirroring, sublicensing, white-labeling, renting, leasing, or reselling access to GentlePDF services to third parties without an authorized enterprise distributor contract.
• Circumvention of Limits: Circumventing or attempting to bypass free-tier rate limits, page caps, file size thresholds, IP cooldown intervals, or security restrictions.

5Document Confidentiality & Ephemeral Processing

5.1 Zero-Knowledge Operational Philosophy: GentlePDF is architected with a strict privacy-first foundation. We do not inspect, read, index, mine, synthesize, or train machine-learning models upon the contents of your uploaded documents. Document processing (e.g. OCR text extraction, PDF merging, compression) is performed through automated worker pipelines without human intervention.

5.2 Ephemeral Storage & Retention Lifecycle: When you upload a document for processing, your file is temporarily assigned a cryptographically random Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) and staged in an isolated, secure filesystem container. Once your output document is generated and presented for download:

5.3 Transmission Security: All data transmitted between your device and GentlePDF servers is encrypted using modern Transport Layer Security protocols (TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) cipher suites.

6User Content Warranties & Ownership

6.1 Sole Ownership Retained by You: You retain complete and unencumbered ownership of all intellectual property, copyrights, and title in the documents and files you upload to GentlePDF. GentlePDF claims no ownership or proprietary interest whatsoever in your files.

6.2 Limited Processing License: Solely for the technical objective of delivering the requested conversion or document manipulation service to you, you grant GentlePDF a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to receive, replicate, parse, rasterize, reformat, and transmit your document within our temporary processing cluster. This technical license terminates automatically upon deletion of your document.

6.3 Your Representations: You represent, warrant, and certify that: (i) you are the rightful author, owner, or authorized licensee of the documents you submit; (ii) processing of your documents by GentlePDF does not and will not violate any privacy laws, data protection statutes (including HIPAA, FERPA, GDPR, CCPA), or contractual nondisclosure agreements; and (iii) the documents do not contain classified state secrets or unlawful material.

7Subscriptions, Billing, Free Tier & Refunds

7.1 Free Tier Limitations: GentlePDF offers generous free document conversion tiers. Free tier access is subject to reasonable operational constraints, including maximum file size limitations (e.g. 50 MB per file), hourly task limits, and temporary traffic queue prioritization during peak network hours.

7.2 Premium Subscription Plans: GentlePDF may offer optional paid subscriptions ("GentlePDF Pro" or "Team Enterprise") providing higher file size capacities, concurrent batch conversions, priority cloud queue routing, and advanced OCR capabilities. By purchasing a subscription, you agree to pay the fees indicated at the time of purchase.

7.3 Automatic Renewal & Cancellation: Unless specified otherwise, paid subscriptions automatically renew at the close of each billing cycle (monthly or annually) using your stored payment method. You may cancel your subscription at any time via your account settings dashboard. Upon cancellation, your subscription benefits will remain active until the conclusion of your current paid billing period.

7.4 Refund Policy: Because digital processing resources are consumed upon conversion execution, fees paid for subscription terms or one-off processing credits are generally non-refundable. If you experience verifiable technical failures attributable solely to our infrastructure that prevented successful document delivery, you may request a billing review by emailing billing@gentlepdf.com within fourteen (14) days of the incident.

8Intellectual Property & Proprietary Rights

The Platform, including its software code, user interface designs, logos, color schemes, graphics, trademarks, trade dress, interactive widgets, icons, and documentation, are the sole and exclusive intellectual property of GentlePDF Inc. and its licensors. You agree not to copy, duplicate, frame, republish, alter, or create derivative works from any component of the Platform without express prior written authorization from GentlePDF.

The name "GentlePDF", the GentlePDF flame-origami logo, and related badges are registered trademarks or common-law trademarks of GentlePDF Inc. Any other brand names, service marks, or trademarks appearing on the Platform (such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Adobe, Microsoft Word, or LibreOffice) belong to their respective owners and are referenced solely for identification, compatibility, and descriptive purposes.

9Disclaimers of Warranties

GentlePDF expressly disclaims all warranties, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, quiet enjoyment, and accuracy of document formatting. We do not warrant that: (a) the Services will satisfy your exact technical or business requirements; (b) conversions will be error-free, uninterrupted, or perfectly preserve complex proprietary fonts or vector alignments; (c) optical character recognition (OCR) will achieve one hundred percent character accuracy across all languages, handwriting, or low-resolution scans; or (d) defects or server delays will be immediately corrected.

10Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE JURISDICTION, IN NO EVENT SHALL GENTLEPDF INC., ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, SHAREHOLDERS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES, AGENTS, SUPPLIERS, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF REVENUE, LOSS OF GOODWILL, LOSS OF DATA, CORRUPTION OF DOCUMENTS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, WORK STOPPAGE, OR SYSTEM MALFUNCTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICES.

IN NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL GENTLEPDF'S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, EXCEED THE GREATER OF: (A) THE TOTAL AMOUNT ACTUALLY PAID BY YOU TO GENTLEPDF FOR SERVICES DURING THE THREE (3) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE OCCURRENCE GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY; OR (B) FIFTY UNITED STATES DOLLARS ($50.00 USD).

11Indemnification & Hold Harmless

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless GentlePDF Inc., its parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents, contractors, and employees from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, losses, costs, penalties, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees and legal costs) arising out of or resulting from: (i) your access to or use of the Services; (ii) any documents, data, or files submitted by you or through your credentials; (iii) your violation of any term of this Agreement; (iv) your infringement or misappropriation of any third-party intellectual property or privacy right; or (v) your violation of any applicable federal, state, or international laws.

12Dispute Resolution & Binding Arbitration

12.1 Mandatory Informal Negotiation: Prior to initiating any legal proceedings, you and GentlePDF agree to attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement informally. You must send a written notice of dispute detailing the factual basis and specific relief requested to disputes@gentlepdf.com. Both parties agree to negotiate in good faith for at least thirty (30) calendar days following receipt of notice.

12.2 Binding Arbitration: If the dispute cannot be settled within the 30-day informal negotiation window, you and GentlePDF agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy shall be resolved exclusively through final and binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Commercial Arbitration Rules, rather than in a court of general jurisdiction.

12.3 Class Action Waiver: YOU AND GENTLEPDF AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN YOUR OR ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, MASS, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims or preside over any form of representative proceeding.

13Governing Law & Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute or controversy arising out of or related to this Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the substantive laws of the State of Delaware, United States of America, without regard to its conflict of law principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) shall not apply.

To the extent arbitration is found unenforceable or where court adjudication is expressly permitted under these Terms (such as seeking injunctive relief against intellectual property misappropriation), you and GentlePDF submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located within Wilmington, Delaware, USA.

14Service Modifications & Termination

14.1 Evolution of Features: As an actively innovating software-as-a-service platform, GentlePDF reserves the perpetual right to modify, upgrade, discontinue, or temporarily suspend any feature, conversion filter, tool, or endpoint with or without prior notice.

14.2 Termination by GentlePDF: We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account and revoke your access to the Platform immediately and without liability if we reasonably determine that you have violated any provision of these Terms, engaged in abusive network practices, or posed a risk to other users or our infrastructure.

14.3 Survival of Terms: Sections 5 (Confidentiality), 6 (Ownership), 8 (Intellectual Property), 9 (Disclaimers), 10 (Limitation of Liability), 11 (Indemnification), 12 (Dispute Resolution), and 15 (Miscellaneous) shall survive any termination or expiration of this Agreement.

15Miscellaneous & Contact Information

15.1 Entire Agreement: These Terms of Service, together with our Privacy Policy and any written enterprise service order, constitute the complete and exclusive agreement between you and GentlePDF concerning the Services, superseding all prior oral or written negotiations, representations, or understandings.

15.2 Severability: If any provision or portion of these Terms is deemed invalid, illegal, or unenforceable by an arbitrator or court of competent jurisdiction, that provision shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and all remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

15.3 Force Majeure: GentlePDF shall not be held liable for any delay or failure in performance resulting from causes beyond its reasonable control, including acts of God, natural catastrophes, war, terrorism, civil disturbances, power failures, cloud infrastructure outages, global DNS interruptions, or governmental orders.

15.4 Contacting Our Legal Department: If you have any inquiries, legal notices, or feedback regarding these Terms, please contact us at: