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PDF to Word
An editable .docx document. Free, no sign-up.
or drop it here
PDF to Word runs inside your browser — your file never reaches our servers.
How to convert PDF to Word
Your PDF is rebuilt as a real Word document — paragraphs that reflow, real headings, real tables, figures you can move.
- Select your PDF. Scanned documents work too — text is recognised automatically.
- Convert. Each page is read back into paragraphs, headings, lists, tables and figures.
- Download the .docx. Open and edit it in Word, Google Docs or LibreOffice.
What ends up inside the .docx
The document is rebuilt, not traced. Lines that belonged to one paragraph in the PDF are joined back into one paragraph — and a hyphen left behind by the line break is closed up — so the text reflows when you type into it. Line spacing, first-line indent, left indent and alignment are read off the page and set on the paragraph, and a line clearly larger or bolder than the body becomes a real Word heading, which is what fills the navigation pane and lets Word build a table of contents.
Font families are mapped to faces Word ships: Helvetica becomes Arial, Times-Roman becomes Times New Roman, and Korean faces such as Malgun Gothic and Batang are kept so Hangul renders properly. Size, bold and italics carry over, and each line's ink colour is sampled from a render of the page, so a red heading stays red. Bulleted items become real Word lists; numbered ones keep their own numbers as text, because handing them to Word's numbering would renumber an (iv), or a deliberate restart, into something your document never said.
Aligned bands of text become real Word tables with the source column widths. Figures are found individually and placed as ordinary pictures in the flow, so a chart, a logo or a photograph arrives as an object you can select, move, resize or delete rather than as part of one flattened page image. Each PDF page becomes a Word section carrying that page's real size, its recovered margins and two columns if the page was set in two, so the file still reads page for page like the original. A page that had to be read with OCR arrives as ordinary editable text.
Editing it afterwards
Treat it as a document, because it is one: typing a longer sentence pushes the rest of the paragraph along, deleting a paragraph closes the gap, and restyling a heading restyles every heading at that level. A PDF records no paragraphs and no styles at all, so this structure is inferred from the geometry of the page — a heavily designed layout still needs some tidying afterwards, which is true of every converter, including paid ones.
If what you want is a picture-perfect replica to correct in place rather than a document to restructure, switch the option above to “A copy of the pages”. That reproduces each page as an image with the text positioned over it: very close to the PDF, and it does not reflow.
If you only want the words, PDF to Markdown gives plain text with none of this scaffolding, far faster. If the page is really a table, PDF to Excel returns typed cells you can sum instead of a Word grid. And if a scan should stay a scan and simply become searchable, OCR PDF does that — it also lets you choose the recognition language, where the pass built into this converter covers English and Korean only.
Questions
Can I really edit it, or does it just look right?
You can really edit it. Lines are joined back into paragraphs, so typing pushes the text along instead of overlapping the line below. Headings are real heading styles, bullets are real lists, tables are real tables, and each figure is its own picture. If you would rather have a pixel replica to correct in place, choose “A copy of the pages” before converting.
Will the Word file look exactly like the PDF?
Very close. Page size, margins, column count, fonts, sizes and colours all carry over. A PDF records no paragraphs and no styles, so that structure is inferred from the layout — heavily designed pages still need some tidying afterwards, which is true of every converter, including paid ones.
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
Yes. Pages with no text layer are recognised automatically so you get editable text rather than a picture of text.
Why is this slower than merging?
Merging just rearranges structure. Converting has to read and render every page, which is real work for your processor — so it takes longer on an older machine.
Are headings turned into Word heading styles?
Yes. A PDF only records that a line is 18pt and bold, never that it is Heading 1, so the level is inferred — from size relative to the document's body text, from weight, and from section numbering. They come through as real Heading 1–6 styles, which is what populates Word's navigation pane and lets it build a table of contents. Check them on a heavily designed document; inference from geometry is not infallible.
Why is the Word file larger than the PDF?
Mostly because of the figures. Each chart, logo or photograph is cropped out of a render of the page at roughly 200 dpi and embedded, so a document full of graphics grows. A text-heavy document converts to a file of a very ordinary size, because the text is text. If you only want the words, PDF to Markdown is smaller and much faster.
Do hyperlinks, bookmarks and form fields survive?
No. Text, fonts, colours, tables, headings and figures come across; clickable links, bookmarks and PDF form fields do not. A link's wording arrives as ordinary text, so you can re-apply the link in Word where it matters.
Why did my two-column paper stay in two columns?
Because the page was set that way, and the section is built with two Word columns to match. The text still flows: edit the left column and it reflows within the column, exactly as it would in a document you had written. A page that is genuinely one column is never split.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Every tool on this site runs inside your browser, using the same engine as the Folia desktop app. Your file is read from your disk into your browser’s memory, processed there, and handed back as a download. It never crosses the internet, so there is nothing for us to store, leak or hand over.
Is there a file size limit?
We impose none. The only ceiling is your own device’s memory, which differs from one computer to another — so we read what your browser reports about this machine and show the resulting limit on the page. Light tools like merge and rotate handle far more than heavy ones like OCR, which must render every page. For anything larger, Folia for Desktop has no limit at all.
Is it really free? Do I need an account?
Yes, and no. Every tool is free and unlimited, with no watermark and no sign-up. Ads pay for the site, and your own computer does the work, which costs us nothing. Signing in with a paid Folia plan simply removes the ads.