Document Converters

Convert between PDF, DOCX, TXT, HTML, and Markdown. The converters use pdf.js for reading PDFs (same library Firefox uses), jsPDF for creating them, and standard browser APIs for everything else. Your documents are processed locally and never sent to a server.

What each format is good for

PDF locks down formatting so the document looks the same everywhere. It is what you send when you do not want anyone editing the content. DOCX is Microsoft Word's format and still what most organizations use for editable documents. TXT is just plain text, no formatting, no surprises. Opens in anything.

HTML is what the web runs on. Useful when you need to publish content on a website or embed rich text in an email template. Markdown is what developers write docs in. README files, internal wikis, static site content. It is readable as plain text but renders nicely into HTML.

Conversions people reach for

• PDF to TXT to pull the text out of a report or contract for searching or analysis
• DOCX to PDF before sending a Word doc to someone who might not have Word
• Markdown to HTML for publishing docs on a site that does not render Markdown natively
• HTML to PDF to save web content as a portable document
• PDF to JPG when you need to stick a page in a slide deck or a chat message
• TXT to PDF to make plain text look a bit more formal

Limitations worth knowing about

PDF text extraction works well for documents that contain actual text. Scanned PDFs are essentially images and will return nothing useful since there is no OCR step. Multi column layouts and complex tables can also come out jumbled because PDF stores text as positioned glyphs, not structured paragraphs. If Chrome's built in PDF viewer also shows garbled text when you try to copy from the same document, the problem is the PDF, not the tool.

The PDF to image converters (JPG and PNG) render the first page only right now. Multi page support is planned. PDF rendering uses the same engine Firefox uses internally, so the output quality is solid. Pages render at 144 DPI (2x scale), which looks sharp on retina displays.