Privacy policy

The short version

MDPress turns your Markdown into a PDF and does not keep the text. Your draft and settings live in your own browser. To count the free PDFs we store a few technical signals for each PDF you generate, never the document itself. Accounts are optional and run through Clerk. Payments run through Stripe. The site measures visits with Google tools and shows Google ads to visitors who do not pay, and Google uses cookies to do that. The sections below go through each of these points in turn.

The documents you convert

When you press the PDF button, your Markdown, your layout settings and any images or diagrams embedded in it are sent to our server over an encrypted connection. The server builds the PDF in memory with a headless Chromium browser and sends the file straight back to you. MDPress does not write your text or the finished PDF to its database, and the response is marked so that it is not cached. The only things recorded about a conversion are the page format and the style you chose, along with the signals described under the free allowance below.

What stays in your browser

The editor saves your work in your browser’s local storage so that it is still there when you come back. That covers your current draft, including any images you embedded in it, your document settings and signature, your saved presets, your saved signatures, your custom templates, the editor layout and your light or dark theme. None of this is uploaded for safekeeping, and we cannot see it or restore it. Clearing your browser’s site data removes it. A random visitor id is also kept in browser storage, which is explained in the next section.

How the free allowance is counted

Each time a PDF is generated we store one record with a random visitor id held in a cookie and in your browser storage, a hashed device signal, your IP address and its network prefix, your account id if you are signed in, your plan, the page format, the style and the time. The device signal is a one way hash computed in your browser from traits such as screen size, time zone and graphics hardware. Only the hash is sent. The records count PDFs over a rolling 24 hour window and give the site owner usage totals. Once a record is older than 24 hours, the visitor id, device signal, IP data and account id are erased from it. What remains is an anonymous count with the plan, page format, style and time.

Accounts

You can use MDPress without an account. If you create one, sign up and sign in are handled by Clerk, an authentication provider. Clerk stores your email address and sign in details and keeps you signed in with its own cookies. MDPress receives a user id from Clerk and uses it to count your PDFs and to link a subscription to you. We do not store your password. If you start a subscription, the email address on your account is passed to Stripe so that the checkout form is already filled in.

Payments

Subscriptions are sold through Stripe. You enter your card details on a page hosted by Stripe, so MDPress never sees or stores your card number. What we keep is a small record that links your user id to a Stripe customer id and subscription id, the subscription status and the end of the current billing period. Stripe tells our server when that status changes, and that is how the site knows to lift the limit and hide the ads. You can manage or cancel the subscription in Stripe’s billing portal, which you reach from your dashboard.

Analytics and error monitoring

The site loads Google Tag Manager, which we use to run Google Analytics. These tools measure visits, such as which pages are viewed, roughly where visitors come from and which device they use, and they set cookies to do so. The application also contains error monitoring by Sentry, which, where it is switched on, receives technical details about crashes and may include a recording of the page session in which an error happened, with all text, form fields and images masked. Server logs note that a PDF was generated, with the plan and page format, and can be forwarded to the logging service Better Stack. An optional security service, Arcjet, may inspect requests to block automated traffic.

Advertising

MDPress shows ads from Google AdSense. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website and other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and other sites on the internet. You may opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google’s Ads Settings. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, Google’s consent message asks for your choice before personalised ads are shown. Paying subscribers see no ads.

• Google Ads Settings
• How Google uses information from sites that use its services

Cookies

MDPress sets two first party cookies of its own. The cookie mp_visitor holds a random visitor id, lasts up to one year, cannot be read by scripts and is only used to count the free allowance. The cookie NEXT_LOCALE remembers the language you chose. If you sign in, Clerk adds the cookies it needs to keep your session. Third party cookies fall into two groups: measurement cookies from Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager, and advertising cookies from Google and its ad partners. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The editor keeps working, although the free allowance is then counted by the other signals.

Your rights

You can ask what information MDPress holds about you, ask for it to be corrected, ask for it to be deleted, and object to how it is used. Depending on where you live, the law may give you further rights, such as receiving a copy of your data or complaining to your local data protection authority. To make a request, write to us using the address on the contact page and tell us which account or browser it concerns. We may need a little information to find the right records. Data held by Clerk, Stripe or Google can also be managed directly with those companies.

Children

MDPress is a general purpose writing tool and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and accounts are not meant for them. If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child has created an account or sent us personal information, please get in touch through the contact page. We will remove the account and the related records that we control as soon as we can confirm the request.

Changes to this policy

This policy will change when the site changes, for example when a feature is added or a provider is replaced. The current version is always the one published on this page. If a change meaningfully affects how your information is handled, we will point it out on the site rather than quietly editing the text. Because MDPress is free software, you can also read the source code to check that the site does what this page says. Continuing to use MDPress after a change means the updated policy applies to you.

Contact

If you have a question about this policy, or want to use any of the rights described above, write to us using the address on the contact page. Please say which part of the site your question is about and, for requests about your data, which account or browser is involved. We read every message and aim to reply within a few working days. You do not need an account to contact us, and asking a privacy question will never affect your access to the service.