Utilore

Word to PDF

Drop in a Word document and take back a PDF. The pages are laid out here, on your device, and the text inside stays text: you can select it, search it and have it read aloud.

or drop them here

A .docx file — the format Word saves by default

      The layout is rebuilt, not copied. Text, headings, lists, tables and pictures come across; columns, headers and footers, footnotes and the original fonts do not.

      How to use

      1. Drop a .docx onto the area below, or press «Select file».
      2. Pick the page size — A4 or Letter.
      3. Press «Build PDF» and download the result.

      Good to know

      Why the layout is rebuilt and not copied

      A .docx has no pages. It holds a stream of text, and Word pours it onto sheets using the fonts installed on that particular computer — which is why the same file already prints differently on two machines. So the document is set anew here: text, headings, lists, tables and pictures come across; columns, headers and footers, footnotes and the original fonts do not. That is the same careful promise as on the page that goes the other way, and for the same reason.

      Text that stays text

      It would be far easier to draw each page as a picture and call it a PDF. The file would look right and be useless: nothing to select, nothing for search to find, nothing for a screen reader to say, and several times the weight. Instead the font is embedded in the file and every glyph carries a reverse map back to its character, so copying out of the PDF gives you words rather than rubbish. The built-in font covers Latin, Cyrillic and Greek.

      Frequently asked questions

      Is my document uploaded anywhere?

      No. It is read and the PDF is built inside your browser, on your device. That is what makes it safe to put a contract or a medical record through it.

      Why does the result not look exactly like Word?

      Because it cannot. Word decides where pages break using fonts and hyphenation rules that live on your computer, not in the file. Everything that is in the document comes across; where the lines fall is decided here.

      It says my file is not a .docx.

      Then it is probably the old .doc format from Word 97, which is a completely different thing inside. Open it in Word and save it again with «Save as» — choose .docx, and it will convert.

      Can it convert a document in Chinese, Japanese or Arabic?

      Not yet. A font covering those scripts is tens of megabytes, and Arabic and Devanagari need letter shaping on top of that. Rather than hand you pages of empty boxes, the tool says so and stops.

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