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Converting Word to PDF is one of our daily office task. It's also often needed to do in school. PDF is favored by many because it displayed nicely in any device and it is difficult to edit. We often convert important documents to PDF format for sharing. Such as our advisor ask us to share thesis paper in PDF instead of Word.
However, When you need to convert Word to PDF on Mac, you want to do it without losing formatting. For something as important as a thesis, the formatting absolutely cannot be wrong.
There are many ways to convert Word to PDF on a Mac here in this article we will mainly focus on the solutions to convert Word to PDF without formatting messing up.
Note: 'Without Losing Formatting' means that after converting from Word to PDF, the layout won't change, and when you zoom in on the PDF, the text, formulas, links, and tables will remain as clear as they were in Word. However, this doesn’t mean they will be exactly the same. The file type are different, there will surely not exactly the same.
Cisdem PDF Converter OCR 
Reason for Recommendation: Batch conversion while preserving the layout, support OCR
When converting from Word to PDF, you often have to give up its formatting and do the conversion one by one. But with Cisdem PDF Converter OCR you don’t have to make this compromise!
Just from the name, we can tell that this is a PDF conversion tool. It supports mutual conversion between PDF and various formats such as Word, Excel, PPT, Keynote, XPS, RTF, CAD, CHM, Pages, EPUB, images, etc. It supports adding and converting multiple files at once, and the multi-core process make it 30 times faster than other options. Additionally, the converted file will not have layout issues or garbled text, which makes it very useful.
The conversion process is very simple. After opening the software, select the 'Creator' function, upload one or more Word files, set the output path, and finally click the 'Create' button to get the converted PDF files.
Now, let me share the detailed steps with screenshots!
Free Download macOS 10.14 or later
Also, you can refer to this video:
Reason for Recommendation: Currently the best free method in terms of results.
One free way to do this is to use the print function on Mac. With this method you can also achieve the goal of converting from Word to PDF without losing formatting.
Reason for Recommendation: Apple's official method
Apple Pages is an easy and unique word processor that preinstalled in macOS, but it has a high compatibility with Microsoft Office Word document, allowing users to open both Doc and Docx files on Mac for free. It has the feature to export Pages documents (Word documents) as PDF. However, your Word document will look different in Pages, there will be missing fonts, removed links, layout changes and so on, therefore the PDF output will lose original quality.
Adobe is the creator of PDF format, so it promise the best result when it comes to editing and converting PDF files. If you have installed and subscribed Adobe Acrobat, you can absolutely use this program to create PDF from Word easily.
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Reason for not recommending: MathType formulas may become distorted (e.g., when zooming in on a PDF, the square root symbols may distort, and sometimes the formulas might also become garbled).
If you have worked with Microsoft Word for a quite while, Word to PDF conversion would be quite easy using this app, just save the Word file as PDF on your Mac. But keep this in your mind, Microsoft Office and Adobe use different ways to decode files, which means the PDF file will look different in Word app.
Also, you can go to File > Print, choose Save as PDF.
As a Mac user, you should be quite familiar with Preview, the image viewer and PDF viewer coming within the macOS. In addition to these, Preview can also open iWork and Office files in Big Sur and earlier macOS versions. It is pitiful that Preview cannot open Word document since the release of Monterey. If you uses Big Sur or earlier, take following steps to convert Word to PDF free on your Mac.
Google Docs, in essence, is same as Microsoft Word or Apple Pages, is a simple word processor, but works in browser online to edit and share documents. If you get used to editing Doc or Docx files in Google Docs, you can convert them to PDF as well. However, there are formatting issues too.
Of course, there are more choices, you can search additional Word to PDF tools or solutions online in Google. But if you want a good user experience and high quality, I do believe Cisdem PDF Converter OCR will be your best option, it is paid but affordable, capable of boosting your efficiency on paperwork.
Carolyn has always been passionate about reading and writing, so she joined Cisdem as an editor as soon as she graduated from university. She focuses on writing how-to articles about PDF editing and conversion.
I tried cisdem free trial, the conversion is really good, there is no format or layout mess-up, that's pretty cool.
1 years ago Reply
Well, I just realized that Preview can read Word files, now the Word to PDF conversion can be quite easier.
5 years ago Reply
While Word does allow "save as" PDF, it changes all the formatting and page layout from a 6x9 book size to a 8x11 size, and to add insult to injury it also changes the font, spacing, and pagination. Any ideas for software that actually keeps the .docx file as is viewed on Word with the original page setup, margins, spacing, font, and other layouts?
7 years ago Reply
My customers sent me files with all kinds of formats, I need to keep records in PDF, it's good to have so great tool for my job.
8 years ago Reply
