How to use the Text to PDF
- Type or paste your text into the box. Your draft is kept in this browser if you close the tab.
- Choose a font, size and line spacing. Courier keeps columns and code aligned.
- Pick the page size and margins, and decide whether to number the pages. The page count updates as you go.
- Click Create PDF to download it. For non-Latin scripts, use Print / Save as PDF instead.
Features
- Helvetica, Times and Courier fonts with sizes from 5 to 72 pt
- Proper word wrap and automatic pagination with a live page count
- Letter, A4 and Legal paper with four margin presets
- Optional page numbers and an automatic document title
- Detects characters the standard fonts cannot show
- Print-view fallback that supports every language and script
When a plain-text PDF is the right choice
Not everything needs a word processor. Meeting notes, a cover letter drafted in an email, a list exported from another app, a configuration file or a snippet of code often just needs to become a tidy document that anyone can open and print. A PDF fixes the layout, so the recipient sees exactly the same line breaks and pages that you do, on any device.
How the layout works
The tool measures every word with the exact character widths of the chosen font and fills each line up to the right margin, then moves to the next. A single word longer than the line, such as a long web address, is split rather than running off the page. Line breaks you type are kept, and a blank line leaves a blank line, so paragraphs and lists look as you wrote them. Lines are then poured onto pages: when a page is full, a new one starts. The live counter shows how many pages your text will fill with the current settings.
Choosing fonts and spacing
| Font | Character | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Helvetica | Clean sans-serif | Notes, handouts, on-screen reading |
| Times | Traditional serif | Letters, essays, long printed text |
| Courier | Monospace, every character the same width | Code, logs, plain-text tables, screenplays |
These are three of the 14 standard PDF fonts that every PDF reader has built in, so nothing needs to be embedded and the files stay very small, often just a few kilobytes per page. For body text, 10–12 points with 1.15 spacing reads comfortably. Double spacing is often requested for drafts that will be marked up by hand. Normal (one-inch) margins match common document defaults; narrow margins fit more on each page.
Characters and languages
The standard fonts use an encoding called WinAnsi, which covers English and the other Western European languages, including accented letters such as é, ü and ñ, curly quotes, dashes, the euro sign and the trademark symbol. A few common look-alikes, such as the Unicode minus sign and non-breaking hyphens, are converted automatically. Other scripts, such as Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Chinese, Cyrillic and Greek, and emoji, are not included. When the tool finds such characters, it lists them and offers two choices:
- Print / Save as PDF opens a clean print view of your text with your settings, laid out by your browser with your device’s fonts. Choose “Save as PDF” as the printer to get a PDF in any language, with right-to-left lines aligned correctly.
- Replace with ? and create PDF builds the PDF with the standard font and replaces the unsupported characters with question marks, useful when only a stray symbol is involved.
Tips
- The first line of your text becomes the PDF’s title property, which many readers show in the title bar. Change it later with the PDF Metadata Editor.
- To combine the result with other documents, use Merge PDF; to add a “DRAFT” stamp, use Watermark PDF.
- Going the other way? PDF to Text pulls the text back out of a PDF.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a .txt file to PDF?
Open the .txt file in any text editor, copy everything, paste it into the box here and click Create PDF. Line breaks and blank lines are kept.
Why are some of my characters shown as unsupported?
The built-in PDF fonts only cover Western European characters. Use Print / Save as PDF to create the PDF with your device’s fonts, which support every language.
Can I make the PDF with page numbers?
Yes. Keep “Add page numbers” ticked and each page gets a small number centered at the bottom.
Which font should I use for code?
Courier. Every character has the same width, so indentation and aligned columns stay exactly as in your editor.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. The PDF is created in your browser. Your draft is saved only in this browser’s local storage so it survives a closed tab, and Clear removes it.