Word to PDF converter — turn a .docx into a PDF without Office

How to use Word to PDF

1. Choose a .docx file.
2. Pick a Page size (A4, US Letter, US Legal, A3 or A5) and an Orientation.
3. Set the Margins in millimetres (20 mm by default) and the Body text size in points (11 pt by default).
4. Press Convert to PDF.
5. Check the page count in the result, preview the PDF and download it.

What it does and when to use it

Most forms, job portals and offices ask for PDFs because they look the same on every device. If you wrote something in Word, or received a .docx by email, but you do not have Office installed on the computer or phone in front of you, this tool gives you a PDF in a few seconds.

It is designed for content-first documents: letters, CVs, essays, reports, notes, policies and instructions. It reads the structure of the document, meaning headings, paragraphs, bold and italic text, bullet and numbered lists, tables and pictures, and lays that structure out again neatly on the page size you choose. It does not try to copy Word’s exact layout, which is why the result is always clean and consistent, but also why some design details are left out.

How it works

Everything happens in a background worker in your browser. The mammoth library reads the .docx file and turns it into a simple structured version of the document. pdf-lib then lays that structure out on pages: it wraps paragraphs to the width between your margins, sizes headings larger than body text, indents lists, draws tables as a grid of cells and places PNG and JPEG pictures scaled to fit.

The fonts are the standard PDF set (Helvetica for text), which every PDF reader includes. That keeps the file small and guarantees it opens anywhere, at the cost of your original typefaces.

Worked examples

A one-page cover letter. Choose A4, keep 20 mm margins and 11 pt text. The result is a one-page PDF with your paragraphs, any bold or italic words and your bulleted list. If you are applying in the US, choose US Letter instead.

A five-page report with a table and two charts pasted as pictures. Headings and the table come through, and the charts appear if they are PNG or JPEG images. Pictures in other formats, such as some drawings made inside Word, are left out, and the result tells you how many were skipped.

A document in Telugu. The Telugu letters would be replaced with question marks because the standard PDF fonts do not include them. Use Word, Google Docs or LibreOffice to export this kind of document to PDF, since they embed the right fonts.

Large print for easier reading. Set Body text size to 14 pt and margins to 15 mm. Headings scale up with the body text.

Limits and tips

• Only .docx is accepted, not .doc, .odt or .rtf.
• Exact fonts, colours of text boxes, multi-column layouts, headers, footers, footnote placement and manual page breaks are not reproduced.
• To join the PDF with other documents, use the PDF Merger. To add a password, use Protect PDF.
• Going the other way? PDF to Word turns a PDF back into an editable .docx.
• If an upload form limits the size, the PDF from this tool is usually small already; if not, try Compress PDF to 500 KB with image conversion off so the text stays selectable.