PDF Converter
FileFlip converts PDF files into 61 other formats entirely inside your browser, using MuPDF, Pandoc and ImageMagick compiled to WebAssembly. The PDF file is never uploaded to a server: it is read off your disk, converted on your own machine, and saved back by the browser. There is no file-size limit and no account to create.
How do I convert a PDF file?#
- Drop your PDF file onto the converter at the top of this page, or click it to pick one from your computer.
- Choose the format you want out of it. FileFlip downloads the engine that conversion needs, once, and your browser caches it.
- Conversion starts the moment you pick the format, and the result is yours to download. The work happens in this tab, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is queued.
Is it safe to convert PDF files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts PDF files inside the browser tab you already have open, using WebAssembly builds of the same engines a desktop converter would install. Your file is read from your own disk into the page's memory, and no request carrying it is ever made.
You do not have to take that on trust. Open your browser's network panel, run a conversion, and you will see the engine come down and your file go nowhere. There is no upload, no server-side copy, no retention window, and no account tied to what you converted.
How FileFlip works lists every engine, its version and its download size, and shows how to check for yourself that nothing leaves your machine.
What happens to a PDF file#
FileFlip converts PDF into 61 formats with MuPDF, Pandoc and ImageMagick, all of it inside the browser tab. Each conversion below names the engine it uses, what it downloads, and exactly what that conversion keeps or drops.
| Category | Documents |
|---|---|
| File extension | |
| FileFlip support | Read and written |
| Conversions available | 61 |
| Engines | MuPDF, Pandoc and ImageMagick |
| Downloaded to your browser | 9.9 MB on the first conversion, then cached |
What is a PDF file?#
A PDF file records each character, image and line at a fixed position on the page, independent of any word processor's styles or fonts, which is what makes it print and display identically wherever it opens.
Use PDF to send a finished document to someone who needs to see the exact layout, on any device, without being able to accidentally change it.
Convert PDF to DOCX or another editable format when the real task is changing the wording, not just reading it, and accept that the layout will reflow rather than stay pinned in place.
The PDF file format reference covers the specification, the programs that open one, and what each conversion keeps or drops.
PDF questions people ask#
Does converting a PDF to Word preserve the original layout?
No, it reflows rather than preserves. A PDF fixes every line of text and image at an exact coordinate, while a Word document flows text into paragraphs and pages that adjust to fit, so a converter has to guess at paragraph breaks, headings and reading order from position alone. Simple single-column documents come through close to intact; multi-column layouts, text boxes and tables often don't.
Can a scanned PDF be turned into editable text?
Only through OCR (optical character recognition), which reads the shapes of letters in the scanned image and turns them into actual text characters. A scanned PDF has no text in it at all, only a picture of a page, so a converter that just changes the file format has no words to extract until OCR has run as a separate step.
How do I make a PDF file smaller?
The biggest reduction usually comes from recompressing or downsampling the embedded images, since photos at print resolution are the main thing bloating most PDFs. Removing embedded fonts you don't need, flattening unnecessary layers, and stripping metadata help further, though they save far less than the images do.
Why can't I select or search the text in some PDF files?
That happens when the PDF is a scan: the page is stored as an image, so there's no text underneath to select. A PDF built from a word processor or web page instead embeds real text, which is why selection and search work on some PDFs and not others that look identical.
What's the difference between a regular PDF and PDF/A?
PDF/A is a restricted subset of PDF built for long-term archiving. It bans features that depend on something outside the file, like links to external content or non-embedded fonts, so a PDF/A file is guaranteed to look the same decades from now, even after the software that made it is gone.