Word to PDF
Word to PDF reads a .docx file, renders it to styled HTML in your browser and prints that to a PDF. Headings, paragraphs, lists, bold and italic, tables and inline images come through. Because the rendering engine is the browser and not Word, page breaks and exotic layouts will not match Word exactly - treat it as a good-enough conversion, not a pixel-perfect one.
1 Add your file
Enter the open password to use it here. It is checked in your browser and never sent anywhere.
2 Choose your options
This converter reads your .docx, renders it to styled HTML with your browser's own layout engine, and prints that to a PDF. Headings, paragraphs, bold and italic, lists, tables and inline images all come across. What will not match Word exactly is pagination, precise font metrics, headers and footers, columns, text boxes and anything positioned absolutely, because the browser is not Word and is not pretending to be. For a contract you need to look identical, export from Word itself. For getting a readable PDF out of a document quickly and privately, this does the job.
How to word to PDF
Add your .docx file
Drop it in. It is unzipped and read inside your browser — Word does not need to be installed.
Check the preview
The document is rendered so you can see how it will come out before committing to the conversion.
Download the PDF
The rendered pages are captured and written to a PDF at the page size you chose.
What survives the conversion, and what shifts
A Word file describes structure — headings, paragraphs, tables — and leaves the appearance to be worked out at display time. A PDF describes appearance, with every decision already made. Converting means performing that layout, which is exactly what Word itself does when it paginates a document.
The fidelity question is therefore about fonts. A document laid out in a typeface that is not available must be laid out in a substitute, and a substitute with different letter widths rewraps lines — which is why a converted document often matches at the top of page one and drifts further down.
A worked example
A CV set in a licensed corporate font converts with a close substitute, and a two-line heading becomes three lines, pushing the last entry onto a second page. The fix is in the source rather than the converter: switch the document to a widely available family before converting, or accept the reflow and adjust the spacing.
Limitations worth knowing
- Fonts that are not embedded in the source and not widely available are substituted, which rewraps text and can change the page count.
- Tracked changes and comments are rendered according to how the document is set to display them — accept or reject them before converting.
- Complex features such as linked objects, macros and some field codes have no PDF equivalent and are rendered as their current value or dropped.
- Very old .doc files convert less predictably than .docx; re-saving as .docx first usually improves the result.
- Headers, footers and page numbering come from the source document's own settings, not from the conversion.
Related tools
Word to PDF — frequently asked questions
Because the rendering engine is your browser, not Microsoft Word. Text, headings, lists, tables and images come across faithfully, but line breaks, page breaks and precise spacing can differ. We would rather tell you that up front than have you find out after sending the file.
No. The binary .doc format from Word 2003 and earlier cannot practically be parsed in a browser. Open it in Word or LibreOffice and save it as .docx first, which takes a few seconds.
Not the exact fonts, no — the PDF uses the font family you choose in the options. If typographic fidelity matters, exporting from Word itself is the right tool.
No. Those live in Word's own page model, which the browser does not have. Convert without them and then use Add Page Numbers on the result if you need numbering.
No. The .docx is unzipped and rendered entirely in this tab. That is the main reason to use a browser-based converter for anything confidential.
Tracked changes are shown in their accepted state, and comments are dropped. Accept or reject the changes in Word first if that matters.