Convert Word to PDF
Turn a Word document into a PDF anyone can open.
About this converter
PDF is what you send when the other person might not have Word, or when you want the document to look the same wherever it is opened.
This reads the structure of your document — headings, paragraphs, lists, quotes, tables and pictures — and lays it out cleanly on A4.
It is a fresh layout rather than a photograph of your document, so the words, their order and the structure all survive while line and page breaks fall wherever this layout puts them. A .docx names the fonts it wants rather than carrying them, and matching Word's spacing would mean reproducing its whole typesetting engine — so neither is copied. For a report, a letter or a CV that is fine. Where the precise layout is the point — a form, a certificate, something designed — this is not the right tool.
Frequently asked questions
Will it look exactly like it does in Word?
No, and that is worth knowing before you start. The text, headings and lists all come across, but the layout is rebuilt rather than copied, so line and page breaks will differ.
Why can it not match Word exactly?
Matching it means running Word's own typesetting — its line breaking, hyphenation, tab stops and table sizing — and using the very fonts the author had, which a .docx names but does not carry. Word itself reflows a document opened on a computer missing one of its fonts. What a browser can do reliably is read the structure and set it out well, which is what this does.
Does it work with old .doc files?
Only the modern .docx format. The old .doc is a different format entirely — a binary layout from the 1990s rather than the zipped XML that replaced it in 2007.
What about images and tables?
Both come across. Tables keep their rows and columns, widths are set from the contents, and a table running past the foot of a page repeats its heading row on the next one. Pictures stored in the document are placed at their own size, or scaled down if they are wider than the text. Drawings made inside Word — shapes, charts, SmartArt — are not pictures in this sense and are left out.
Does my document get sent anywhere?
No. Everything happens on your own device, so the document never leaves it — which matters for the letters, contracts and CVs that end up here.