Document Converter

How the free online document converter works

Document conversion here is about getting at the content. A Word file becomes clean HTML, plain text or Markdown with its headings, lists and tables intact; an e-book becomes a single text file in reading order; a PDF gives up its text layer; and plain text becomes a tidy, printable PDF. Everything runs on your device with open-source libraries: mammoth.js for Word, PDF.js for reading PDFs and pdf-lib for writing them.

Rebuilding page layout is the other half of the job. Turning a Word document into a PDF that looks exactly as it did in Word, or Markdown, reStructuredText, LaTeX and web pages into Word files, needs an office suite or pandoc, which cannot run in a browser tab. Those conversions use LibreOffice and pandoc on our conversion server, and the file is deleted as soon as the result is sent back; every page says which kind it is above the converter.

Which document format should you use?

Choose the output by what you need next. Plain text (TXT) gives you just the words, ready to paste into an email, a chat or another program. HTML keeps the structure, headings, lists, tables and links, and opens in any browser. Markdown keeps the same structure as readable text, which suits wikis, documentation and note apps like Obsidian.

PDF is the choice when a document has to look the same everywhere, for printing, attaching to a form or archiving. Converting text to PDF in the browser gives a clean page with a consistent font; converting a designed Word document to PDF uses LibreOffice on our server, which keeps its layout.

For e-books, EPUB to text is the quickest way to search, quote or feed a book into another tool. For PDFs that are really scans, remember that there is no text inside to extract; use image to text OCR instead.

Common document conversions and why people need them

A few conversions come up again and again. Students and writers turn DOCX into Markdown to move drafts into note apps and static site generators, where headings and lists come across as plain symbols that stay readable. Web editors turn DOCX into HTML to paste into a content management system without the hidden styling Word adds. Researchers turn PDF and EPUB into plain text to search, count words or quote accurately.

Going the other way, TXT and Markdown to PDF give a tidy, printable page with a consistent font, which is useful for notes, logs and simple letters. The conversions to text, HTML and Markdown run inside this tab, so drafts, contracts and manuscripts never leave your device; the ones that need LibreOffice or pandoc say so on their page.

Document formats compared

Tips for converting document files

• Keep the original document; exporting to text or HTML drops layout that cannot be added back.
• Use DOCX to HTML rather than copy and paste when moving a document to a website: the HTML is clean, without the hidden styling Word pastes.
• Plain text output is UTF-8, so every language survives the conversion.
• If a PDF gives no text, it is a scan. Convert a page to JPG and use JPG to TXT to read it with OCR.

Is it safe to convert document files online?

Most conversions here run inside your browser: the page downloads the converter code, and your file is read and processed in the tab on your own device without being sent anywhere. A few formats, such as RST and TeX, need desktop programs and are converted on our conversion server instead. The note under the drop zone says which applies to the format you choose.

When the server is used, the file is sent over an encrypted connection to a private temporary folder that only that conversion uses, converted with an open-source program, and deleted together with the result the moment the result has been sent back. Nothing is stored, and our logs never record file names or contents. Any folder left behind by a failed conversion is removed automatically within ten minutes.