Word to PDFHow to Convert Word to PDF Without Microsoft Word
If you already have a Google account, the fastest free route is Google Docs: open the .docx in Docs, then File > Download > PDF Document (.pdf). If the layout has to survive exactly, install LibreOffice Writer instead — it's free, works offline, and its File > Export As > Export as PDF is the closest thing to Word's own export. And if you can't install anything and don't want the file leaving your computer, the converter on this site does the whole job inside your browser tab.
Pick your route in one line
- Windows or Mac, layout matters: install LibreOffice, open the file in Writer, File > Export As > Export as PDF.
- Any desktop, already signed into Google: upload the .docx to Google Drive, open it in Docs, File > Download > PDF Document (.pdf).
- Mac, nothing to install: open the .docx in Pages (it's already on your Mac), then File > Export To > PDF.
- Chromebook: Google Docs, same File > Download path — details in converting on a Chromebook.
- Nothing installed and nothing uploaded: the converter on this site, which runs in your browser.
- Phone: your operating system already does it — see the two links further down.
Google Docs: fastest, but check the pagination
Go to drive.google.com, drag the .docx onto the window, then double-click it. Docs opens Word files directly now, so there's no conversion step. Choose File > Download > PDF Document (.pdf) and the PDF lands in your Downloads folder.
The catch is that Docs re-renders your document with its own layout engine and its own font list. Calibri and Aptos aren't in that list, so Google substitutes something close. Substituted metrics change line lengths, line lengths change where paragraphs break, and a break moving by two lines pushes content onto a new page. Headers, footers and text boxes can also land somewhere slightly different.
For a memo, an essay or anything that just needs to read correctly, none of this matters. For a one-page resume, a contract where clause numbers are cited by page, or a template someone else built, open the result and count the pages before you send it. Docs also refuses documents over 50 MB or about 1.02 million characters. More on why this happens in layout shifts after conversion.
LibreOffice: free, offline, and the closest to full fidelity
LibreOffice is a full office suite from The Document Foundation, free for Windows, Mac and Linux at libreoffice.org/download. Open the .docx in Writer, then File > Export As > Export as PDF, which opens a dialog with page range, image compression and bookmark options. If you don't care about those, File > Export As > Export Directly as PDF skips the dialog.
This is the route to take when the document is complicated. Writer renders headers and footers, footnotes and endnotes, page numbers in a table of contents, text boxes, multi-column sections and charts — the features that lighter tools quietly drop. It is not pixel-identical to Word, and it still substitutes fonts you don't have installed, but it is the closest you'll get without a license.
On a Mac you have a second option that needs no download: Pages opens .docx files, and File > Export To > PDF produces the PDF. Pages warns you on import about anything it changed, which is worth reading rather than dismissing. And from any Mac app, File > Print > the PDF dropdown > Save as PDF works as a fallback.
Word for the web: Microsoft's own free tier
You don't need a paid license to use Word in a browser. Sign in at office.com with a free Microsoft account, upload the .docx, and it opens in Word for the web with 5 GB of free OneDrive storage behind it. Then File > Export > Download as PDF.
Because Microsoft is rendering a Microsoft format, fidelity is better than the Google Docs route — this is the best free option when the formatting is fussy and you'd rather not install software. Note the second item in that Export menu, Download as PDF with comments: the plain option leaves review markup out, which is usually what you want.
What the free browser version won't do: work offline, run macros, handle mail merge or the citations manager, or use fonts outside its web set. And the trade-off worth naming out loud is that your document is uploaded to Microsoft's servers to be opened at all. For a company handbook that's fine. For a signed contract or a medical record, it's a decision — see converting without uploading.
The converter on this page: nothing installed, nothing uploaded
The Word to PDF converter here is JavaScript. It reads the .docx and writes the PDF in your browser tab, so the file never reaches a server. The honest test: load the page, turn off your Wi-Fi, then drop a file in. It still works, because there was never anything to upload.
It keeps headings, bold, italic, underline, text colors and font sizes; left, right, first-line and hanging indents; bullet lists and numbered lists including letters and Roman numerals with correct restarts; tables with borders, merged cells and wrapped text; page size and margins read from your document; and embedded JPG and PNG images copied into the PDF byte-for-byte rather than re-encoded. Hyperlinks become real clickable annotations. Fonts are embedded, so the PDF looks the same on every machine that opens it. Files up to 100 MB, no sign-up, no daily limit.
What it simplifies, plainly: it typesets in DejaVu Sans, so Calibri, Aptos and corporate fonts are substituted. It does not render headers and footers, footnotes, page numbers in a table of contents, floating text boxes, shapes, charts or multi-column section layouts. It handles .docx only — not legacy .doc, .odt, .rtf or .pages — and it covers Latin, Cyrillic and Greek, raising a clear error for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Devanagari instead of printing empty boxes. If your document uses any of the features in that second list, use LibreOffice.
On a phone, the OS already does it
iPhone and iPad: open the Files app, long-press the .docx and tap Create PDF; the PDF appears beside the original. Full walkthrough plus the Print-preview method in Word to PDF on iPhone.
Android: open the file in the Word app, tap Print, and choose "Save as PDF" as the printer. Details and the Files/Drive alternative in Word to PDF on Android.
If you convert on your phone often, our free app does it on device on iPhone and iPad and on Android, with no watermark and no signal required.
Fidelity, privacy, effort: what you're actually trading
Highest fidelity is LibreOffice, and it costs you a download and a few minutes of install. Word for the web is a close second with no install, and Pages on a Mac sits just behind it. Google Docs is the weakest of the four on complex layouts and the strongest on convenience if you're already signed in. Our browser converter is deliberately in the middle: excellent on text, lists, tables and images, and openly unable to do headers, footnotes and text boxes.
Best privacy is anything that runs on your own machine — LibreOffice, Pages, your phone's built-in Create PDF, and this site's converter, which is the only online option in that group. Google Docs and Word for the web both require the upload; so do iLovePDF, Smallpdf, Adobe, PDF24, FreeConvert, PDF2Go and CloudConvert. PDF24 says as much on its own page, and PDF2Go states it keeps files for 24 hours or ten downloads. None of that is sinister, but it is a fact about where your document goes.
Least effort is the in-browser converter for a one-off, and LibreOffice for anything you'll repeat. If the document is genuinely intricate — a thesis with footnotes, a report with a paginated TOC — install LibreOffice once and stop fighting it.