TXTPlain text
Plain text with no formatting. It opens in any editor and remains the simplest, most durable way to store text.
Convert TXT to PDF
Turn your text files into PDF documents in seconds. Conversion happens in your browser, so your files are never uploaded to a server.
- Files never uploaded
- Free, no sign-up
- No queue
TXT426F6E6A6F75722C
PDF255044462D312E37
The first bytes of a file often reveal its real format.
or drop them here. You can also paste an image (Ctrl+V).
Free · No sign-up · No upload
Files
These sample files are generated on the page. Convert them to try it out, or add your own.
How to convert TXT to PDF
- 01
Add your TXT files
Click “Choose TXT files” or drop them on the page. You can add several at once.
- 02
Check the PDF format
PDF is already selected. Choose the page size, A4 or Letter.
- 03
Convert and download
Click “Convert”, then download your PDF file. With several files, grab everything at once as a ZIP.
TXT to PDF: what to know
Turning a text file into a PDF is useful for printing or archiving notes, a transcript, song lyrics or a log exported from an app, or for uploading text to a site that only accepts PDF. Single line breaks are respected, lines that are too long wrap at the page width, pages are numbered at the bottom when there is more than one, and the file name becomes the document title in its properties.
The text is set in Helvetica, except for paragraphs whose spaces matter: an indented line, a tab or columns lined up with spaces put the paragraph in a fixed-width font with every space kept, a tab moving on to the next multiple of eight characters. A table lined up with spaces, a code snippet or a picture drawn in characters therefore keeps its layout. When a line of a fixed-width text is wider than the page, all of that text is set smaller to make it fit, down to 6 points, so its columns stay lined up; a line still too long at that size carries on at the next line, broken after a space (never one between two digits) or a punctuation mark, without shrinking the rest of the text. Emoji are drawn as small pictures whose text can still be copied, and symbols such as arrows are kept.
TXT vs PDF: what’s the difference?
PDFPortable Document Format
A document format created by Adobe in 1993 and now an ISO standard. The layout looks the same on every device, which makes it the reference format for sharing, signing and printing.
TXT to PDF: frequently asked questions
How do I keep a fixed-width font and the alignment of my text?
There is nothing to do: a paragraph whose layout relies on spaces, with an indented line, a tab or lined-up columns, is set automatically in a fixed-width font that keeps every space, and a tab moves on to the next multiple of eight characters. Other paragraphs stay in Helvetica, which reads better for running text.
My text file isn’t UTF-8: will accented letters display correctly?
In most cases, yes. UTF-8, with or without a BOM, and UTF-16 are recognised, as are the common legacy encodings: Windows-1252, ISO-8859-15, Mac OS Roman and the DOS code pages CP850 and CP437 for Western Europe, Windows-1250 and ISO-8859-2 for Central Europe, Windows-1251, KOI8-R and the DOS encoding IBM866 for Cyrillic, plus Greek, Turkish, Baltic, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. A file without a BOM that isn’t UTF-8 is read as Windows-1252 when its text reads correctly that way; otherwise the encoding is guessed, a message names the one chosen, and it is then worth checking the accents. A file in another encoding, such as Vietnamese, may be misread, so save it as UTF-8 in your editor first.
Are my TXT files uploaded to the internet?
No. The file is read and converted by your browser, on your device. Nothing is sent to a server, and nothing is kept after you close the page.
Does converting TXT to PDF reduce quality?
The text is carried over paragraph by paragraph, line breaks included, in Helvetica; a paragraph whose spaces matter (indents, tabs, lined-up columns) switches to a fixed-width font that keeps them all. Emoji are drawn as small pictures whose text can still be copied. Letters the standard PDF fonts lack, in Polish, Czech, Greek or Cyrillic for example, stay as text thanks to an extra font embedded in the PDF; only text in another script, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai or an Indic script, is saved as pictures of pages. A check then compares the words carried over with those of the document, not their layout; for a long text it compares only the beginning, and the file’s row says so. If it finds a passage missing, a message quotes it.
How many TXT files can I convert?
As many as you like, for free and without signing up. Add them all, then download the results one by one or in a single ZIP. The maximum size depends on your device and browser, with a few caps that protect its memory (for example 20,000 files per archive or 5 million filled cells per workbook: see the home page FAQ); a file over one of them is not converted, and a message says so.
Does it work on iPhone and Android?
Formatomat is designed for recent browsers on computers, iPhone and Android, with no app to install. A conversion the browser cannot do (a format it cannot read or write) is refused with a message that says so.