Word to PDF

About this tool

This free Word to PDF converter turns a .docx document into a PDF that looks the same everywhere and cannot be edited by accident. Headings, bullet and numbered lists, tables, bold and italic text, and embedded pictures all come across.

Everything runs in your browser. Your document is never uploaded to a server — there is no watermark, no sign-up and no page limit.

Features

• A4 or US Letter, portrait or landscape
• Normal, narrow or wide margins
• Three quality levels, from screen-sharing to print
• Optional page numbers
• Every script supported — Latin, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic
• Page thumbnails so you can check the result before downloading
• No watermark and no page limit

Every language, and the trade-off that buys

Most browser-based PDF writers can only use the PDF standard fonts, and those fonts physically cannot encode Hangul, Kana, Han characters or Cyrillic — the character set does not exist in them. A Korean or Japanese document put through such a tool comes out as rows of blank boxes.

This tool takes a different route. Each page is laid out and painted the way your browser draws it, using the fonts on your own machine, and that picture becomes the PDF page. Any script your system can display, it can convert.

The trade-off is worth stating plainly: the text in the resulting PDF is a picture, so it cannot be selected, searched or copied. In exchange you get a PDF that looks exactly like the document did, in any language, with no missing characters. For sending, printing, signing and archiving — what most people convert for — that is the right deal. If you specifically need selectable text in the PDF, use Word's own "Save as PDF", which can embed the original fonts.

The Quality setting controls how finely those pages are painted. *Standard* is fine for reading on screen and makes the smallest file; *High* is the sensible default; *Print* produces the sharpest text and the largest file — worth it if the PDF is going to paper.

Common uses

• Send a CV, letter or report that must look the same on every device
• Lock a document so it cannot be edited by accident
• Hand in an assignment in the required format
• Combine with Merge PDF to assemble a pack of documents
• Prepare a document for signing

How to use it

• Upload a .docx — click the upload area or drag and drop your file
• Choose page size, orientation and margins — A4 portrait suits most documents
• Raise the quality if the PDF is going to be printed
• Tick "Add page numbers" if you want them centred at the foot of each page
• Press "Convert to PDF", check the page thumbnails, then download

Good to know

• Nothing is uploaded. The document is read, laid out and turned into a PDF entirely on your device
• Only .docx is supported. Old .doc files use a completely different format — open one in Word and *Save As* .docx first
• Fonts come from your computer. If the document uses a font you do not have, your browser substitutes the closest match, exactly as it would on screen
• Pages break between blocks, so a paragraph is never cut in half; a table or image taller than a page is split across pages
• The text in the PDF is not selectable — see the section above for why, and when to use Word instead
• Headers, footers and Word page numbers are not part of the document body and will not appear; use the "Add page numbers" option, or Add Header to PDF afterwards
• Tracked changes and comments are not rendered — accept or reject them in Word first
• A very long document takes a moment per page; the status line shows the progress

Related tools

• PDF to Word — the opposite direction
• Merge PDF — join the result to other PDFs
• Compress PDF — make the file smaller before emailing
• Protect PDF — add a password
• Sign PDF — sign it once it is a PDF
• Add Page Numbers to PDF — more control over numbering