What comes through, and what is simplified
| In your Word file | In the PDF |
|---|---|
| Headings (Heading 1–6, Title) | Kept, as larger bold headings |
| Bold, italic, links | Kept; web and email links stay clickable |
| Bulleted and numbered lists | Kept, with nesting |
| Tables | Kept, with merged cells; colours and borders simplified |
| Pictures (JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP) | Kept, in the flow of the text |
| Page size, orientation, margins | Taken from the document; you can change them |
| Fonts, colours, text boxes, columns | Simplified to one clean layout |
| Headers and footers | Left out; page numbers can be added |
When this is the right tool
Use it when you need a clean, readable PDF of a document's content and do not have Word to hand: on a phone, a shared computer or a Chromebook. Letters, reports, assignments, CVs and notices convert well. Documents whose look is the point, such as brochures and certificates, are better exported from the app they were designed in.
Going the other way
Need to edit a PDF in Word? PDF to Word turns it back into real paragraphs and headings. For a web page or pasted HTML, use HTML to PDF.