FileGizmo PDF tools
Turn a Markdown file into a PDF
Lays a CommonMark file onto real pages with headings, paragraphs and lists. Nothing is uploaded, and no HTML inside it is ever run.
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Simple by design
Markdown to PDF in three steps
A Markdown file has structure and no pages. A PDF has pages and no structure. Converting one to the other is a typesetting job: deciding where lines break, how much bigger a heading is, how far a list indents, and when the next line will not fit and a new page has to start.
That work already existed here for Word conversion, and it does not care where the headings came from. So this tool is the CommonMark parser feeding the same typesetter, which is why it behaves identically to the Word converter on the things they share.
What comes through
Headings at all six levels, paragraphs, ordered and unordered lists, emphasis, and inline code. Ordered lists keep the number they started at, so a list beginning at 3 begins at 3.
Tables, images and fenced code blocks come through as their text rather than as tables, pictures and boxes. That is a real limit and it is better stated than discovered: this lays out prose well and does not pretend to be a full renderer.
Images are worth a sentence of their own. A Markdown image is a link to a file somewhere else, and fetching it would mean this page making a request to a third party. A tool whose entire promise is that nothing leaves your device does not get to make an exception for pictures.
HTML inside the Markdown is printed, not run
CommonMark lets you write raw HTML in the middle of a document, and most converters pass it straight through to the renderer.
Here it is escaped, so <span style="color:red"> arrives in the PDF as those characters. Two reasons. The output is a PDF and a PDF is not a web page, so the markup could not do what it says anyway. And a converter that treats text in somebody’s file as instructions is the shape of every problem in this area. Printing what you wrote is the reading that cannot surprise anyone.
Characters the standard fonts cannot draw
The PDF is set in Helvetica, which every reader has, and which covers Latin text and not much else. A character it cannot draw is replaced, and the result tells you how many were replaced rather than letting them vanish.
If your document is in a script the standard fonts do not cover, the count will be large and you will know immediately, which is the point.
Nothing leaves the device
The file is read and the PDF is written by a worker inside your browser. There is no upload, no account and no server copy, and no request goes anywhere while it happens.
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Choose a .md file
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Let the headings and lists be laid out
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Download the PDF
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Which flavour of Markdown?
CommonMark, through the micromark parser. Headings, paragraphs, ordered and unordered lists, emphasis and inline code all come through.
What happens to HTML written inside the Markdown?
It is printed as the text you wrote rather than acted on. A Markdown file is not a place anyone means to write markup that does something, and printing it is the honest reading.
Are images included?
No. The text of an image reference comes through, the picture does not, because fetching it would mean sending a request from a tool that promises not to.
What font is used?
Helvetica, one of the fonts every PDF reader has. Characters it cannot draw are replaced and the result tells you how many, rather than dropping them silently.
Does the file leave my computer?
No. The file is read and the PDF is written by a worker inside your browser, with no upload, account or server copy.
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