Word to PDF

Drop the document on the tool, pick a size, and download the PDF. You do not need Word installed, and you do not need an account. pdfly converts the file, measures the real PDF, and only hands it back when it is at or under the size you picked.

1. Drop one DOCX or DOC file on the tool, or browse for it. It can be up to 100 MB.
2. Pick a size, or leave it on Auto to keep the PDF as converted. When a portal sets a limit, pick it: 2 MB is the most common on job and application portals. Choose Custom for any other number.
3. Start. A short line tells you the size of the PDF when it is ready.
4. Download the PDF, open it once to check it, and upload it.

Most converters give you a PDF of whatever size it turns out to be. That is fine until a portal refuses it. Job sites, university applications, visa and government forms often accept a PDF only under a fixed size, commonly 2 MB, sometimes 1 MB or 500 KB, and they rarely say by how much a file is over. Choosing the size before converting means the file you get is one the form will take.

Use the number printed on the form, since that is the one that will be checked. If there is no number, leave the size on Auto: you get the PDF exactly as converted, and a CV or a letter that is mostly text is small anyway.

Text costs almost nothing: a ten-page report of plain text is usually well under 200 KB as a PDF. What adds weight is pictures. A photo pasted from a phone, a logo saved at a huge size, or a scanned page inside the document can each add megabytes, and Word keeps them at full size even when they are shown small on the page.

When the PDF is over your size, pdfly compresses those pictures, step by step, and stops at the first version that fits. Text stays text, so it stays sharp and selectable. If a document is heavy because it is a scan of a printed page, it may need a larger size, or the option to rasterize pages, which turns every page into a picture and makes text no longer selectable.

pdfly converts with LibreOffice, not with Microsoft Word. Most documents come out the same, page for page. The difference you are most likely to see is fonts. Fonts that ship only with Microsoft Office cannot be installed on a server, so pdfly uses fonts made to the same widths: Carlito for Calibri, Caladea for Cambria, and Liberation fonts for Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New. Because each letter is the same width, lines and pages break where they did in Word.

Documents with an unusual font, complex text boxes, or many tracked changes are the ones most likely to shift. Open the PDF once before you send it. If something moved, edit the text in a PDF to fix a line, or export the PDF from Word itself and use the PDF compressor to bring it under your size.

Headers, footers, page numbers, tables, and pictures stay where they are on the page. Links in the document stay clickable in the PDF, and the text stays text, so a recruiter or a portal can search it and copy from it. Comments in the margin are left out of the PDF.

Some portals take a single upload for everything. Convert each Word document here, then merge PDFs under a size limit with your certificates and pick the portal's size for the joined file. Each step keeps the result under the size you chose.

One document at a time: a DOCX or DOC up to 100 MB. The size can be anything from 8 KB to 100 MB. Documents that need a password to open cannot be converted. Spreadsheets and slide decks are not supported here. The upload and the PDF are deleted within 1 hour, and there is no account to create.