How to convert Word to PDF on your Mac

You can turn a Word file into a PDF on a Mac without Microsoft Word. Apple's Pages opens .docx files and exports PDFs, and any app that opens a document can save it as a PDF from its Print dialog. Koi does it in one drag, without opening anything.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Everything about Koi here is what version 1.12 does. The steps for Pages and the Print dialog come from Apple's own guides, checked October 20, 2026.

1. Drag the Word file onto the Pages icon in your Dock or Applications. Double-clicking it opens Word instead, if you have Word.
2. Choose File, Export To, then PDF.
3. Pick the image quality and save the copy.

Pages is free on the Mac App Store. Apple covers opening Word files and exporting to PDF.

Open the document in any app that reads it, choose File, Print, then pick Save as PDF from the PDF menu at the bottom. Apple's guide.

1. Start dragging the Word file in Finder or on your desktop.
2. While you're still holding it, press and hold Shift. A wheel of formats opens round your pointer.
3. Drop it on PDF. “Essay.pdf” lands beside the original and shows in Finder.

• A .docx is read by Koi itself: Word's styles, headings, numbered and bulleted lists, links, tables and pictures, on the document's own paper size.
• The PDF is real text, and its links work.
• A font your Mac doesn't have becomes the nearest one it does.
• Headers, footers, footnotes and text boxes are left out. For a document that leans on them, Pages or Word keeps more.
• .doc, RTF and ODT files work too, read by macOS.
• The original is never touched. When its folder can't be written to, the copy goes to Downloads.

The same wheel saves a Word file as Pages, plain text, Markdown, HTML, or a PNG or JPG of every page. Pages is saved by Apple's Pages app, so that one needs Pages on your Mac. Slides, spreadsheets and EPUB books get wheels of their own: see EPUB to PDF and Excel to CSV, or the whole Shift wheel.

Pages and the Print dialog are free. Koi has no free plan: Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once, from $59. The Shift wheel uses no AI, so it never counts against Koi's usage. See the plans.