Text to PDF
Typeset plain text into a tidy, paginated PDF — no word processor required.
Done
What this tool does
This tool typesets plain text into a PDF: paragraphs, wrapping, pagination, the page size and margins you choose, and an optional page-number footer.
It uses the standard PDF fonts — Helvetica, Times and Courier — which are built into every PDF reader and add nothing to the file size. The trade-off is encoding: those fonts cover Latin text and the usual typographic marks a word processor inserts, and nothing else. Emoji, Cyrillic, Greek and CJK characters cannot be encoded in them. Rather than failing or silently deleting them, the page counts what it had to leave out and tells you, with examples. An embedded Unicode font would fix this properly and would also mean shipping a large font file on every page load; that is the trade-off this revision makes, stated plainly rather than hidden.
How to use it
- Paste or type your text into the box. Blank lines start new paragraphs, and long lines are wrapped automatically — including very long words such as URLs, which are broken across lines rather than running off the edge of the page.
- Choose a font, size, page size and margin.
- Tick Add page numbers for a centred footer.
- Press Create PDF. The document downloads immediately, and any characters that could not be encoded are reported above.
Common use cases
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Notes and drafts
Turn a plain-text draft into something readable and printable without opening a word processor.
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Documentation
Render a README, changelog or config file into a PDF you can attach or archive.
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Anything that must be a PDF
Portals, applications and print shops that accept only PDF, when all you have is text.
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Archiving correspondence
Save an email thread or a chat log as a fixed, paginated document.
Frequently asked questions
Why were some of my characters left out?
The built-in PDF fonts use a Latin encoding that cannot represent emoji, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic or CJK text. The tool counts every character it could not encode and tells you how many were dropped and which ones, rather than deleting them silently. If you need those characters, you would need a tool that embeds a Unicode font.
Can I control bold, italic or headings?
Not currently — this is a plain-text typesetter, so every paragraph is set in the same face. It is the right tool for turning a block of text into a clean document, not for producing formatted prose.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The PDF is built in your browser and downloads directly to your device. Nothing you type is uploaded or stored, which is why the tool also works with no connection once the page has loaded.