How to convert Word to PDF

Short answer: open the document in Word and choose File → Save As → PDF. Every version since Word 2007 has done this, the output is pixel-identical to your print preview, and nothing leaves your machine. If Word is not installed, open the file in Google Docs and download as PDF — free, no software, works on a Chromebook.

The rest of this page covers the five routes in detail, what each one preserves, and when one method genuinely matters more than another.

The most reliable route, because Word is rendering its own format — there is no translation step, no guessing at layout, no intermediary.

1. Open the .docx in Word (desktop — Windows or macOS).
2. Choose File → Save As (or File → Export → Create PDF/XPS on some builds).
3. Set Save as type to PDF (*.pdf).
4. Click Options if you need bookmarks from headings, want to include document properties, or need to limit the page range.
5. Click Save (or Publish).

What it keeps: everything you see on screen — fonts (embedded as subsets), images at their original resolution, tables, headers, footers, page numbers, hyperlinks, and the table of contents with clickable entries if you tick the bookmarks option.

What it drops: tracked changes and comments are flattened to their visible state. Macros, form fields and VBA code do not exist in PDF. If you need an interactive form, export to PDF/A or use Acrobat to add form fields after conversion — covered in the Acrobat guide.

The answer when you do not have Word installed, or when you are on a school Chromebook, or when you would rather not install anything on a borrowed machine.

1. Go to docs.google.com and open a blank document, or upload the .docx to Google Drive and double-click it.
2. If the toolbar says “.docx” next to the filename, the file opened in compatibility mode — that is fine.
3. Choose File → Download → PDF Document (.pdf).

Google Docs re-renders the document with its own layout engine, so margins, line breaks and pagination can shift compared to what Word shows. Simple documents — letters, reports, essays — come out looking the same. Complex ones with custom fonts, precise column widths or floating images may move things by a fraction of an inch.

The file does sit on Google’s servers while you work with it. That is fine for most things; for a confidential contract, use a local method instead.

A client-side converter runs the conversion inside your browser tab. Word to PDF works this way: you drop up to 20 .docx files on the page, each one is converted to PDF in JavaScript and WebAssembly right on your device, and the result downloads without any file ever reaching a server.

1. Open Word to PDF in any browser — desktop or mobile.
2. Drop the .docx file (or files) on the converter, or click to browse.
3. Each file converts in seconds. Click Download on the result, or Download All for a ZIP.

When to use this over Word’s Save As: when Word is not installed, when you have multiple files and do not want to open each one, or when you need a quick conversion on a phone or tablet. There is no signup, no watermark, and no per-file limit up to 25 MB per document.

LibreOffice is free, open-source, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. If you work with .docx files regularly and do not have a Microsoft 365 licence, it is worth installing.

1. Open the .docx in LibreOffice Writer.
2. Choose File → Export as PDF.
3. In the PDF Options dialog, set image compression, link handling and PDF/A compliance if needed.
4. Click Export and choose where to save.

LibreOffice uses its own rendering engine, so layout differences from Word are more common than with Google Docs — especially with complex tables, text boxes and custom fonts that LibreOffice does not have installed. For straightforward documents, the output is clean.

Power users: LibreOffice also converts from the command line, which makes it scriptable for batch jobs. soffice --headless --convert-to pdf *.docx converts every .docx in the current folder.

Every modern operating system includes a virtual PDF printer. On macOS it is the Save as PDF button in the print dialog; on Windows 10 and 11 it is Microsoft Print to PDF. Open the .docx in any application that can display it, choose File → Print, select the PDF printer, and print.

This produces a correct-looking PDF every time, because it captures exactly what would go to paper. The downside is that Print to PDF flattens everything: text is still selectable (it is not an image), but hyperlinks, bookmarks and the table of contents become plain text. If you need clickable links in the output, use Save As PDF (Method 1) or Export as PDF (Method 4) instead.

Use built-in heading styles. If your document uses Heading 1, Heading 2 and so on rather than manually bold text, the PDF gets a tagged structure that screen readers can navigate and that becomes a clickable bookmark tree in any PDF viewer.

Compress images before converting. Word embeds images at their original resolution. A 12 MP photo pasted from a phone adds 5–10 MB to the PDF even if it displays as a thumbnail. Use Word’s Format → Compress Pictures to bring them down first.

Check the margins. If the document was formatted for US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) and the recipient prints on A4, or vice versa, text near the bottom of the page may clip. Setting the page size to match the intended output before converting avoids surprises.

Flatten tracked changes. Accept or reject all changes before saving as PDF. Otherwise the PDF contains the current visible state — which may include deletions drawn with strikethrough and comments in the margin, depending on your review mode — and the recipient sees your editing history.

The reverse conversion — PDF to Word — is harder, because a PDF stores drawing instructions rather than paragraphs, and every converter has to guess at the document structure. We cover five routes and their trade-offs in How to convert a PDF to Word. If you are doing the round trip — editing a PDF and sending it back out — the return leg through Word to PDF is the fast half.