Convert a PDF to Word on your phone, with no app to install

Steps on an iPhone

1. Open getpdfs.app/pdf-to-word in Safari. Any browser works; Safari is already there.
2. Tap Choose files. iOS opens the Files browser: Recents, iCloud Drive, On My iPhone, Downloads. Tap the PDF. A PDF from Mail or WhatsApp has to be saved to Files first (Share, Save to Files).
3. Check the options. Pictures “put in” and Running lines “left out” suit most documents. For a long document full of photos, “left out” for Pictures makes a much smaller file.
4. Tap Convert to Word. The first time, the page fetches its engine (4.6 MB, once); after that it is kept on the phone.
5. Tap Download file. Safari saves the .docx.
6. Find it with the downloads button next to Safari’s address field, or in Files under Browse, iCloud Drive, Downloads. Apple’s support article “Where to find downloads on your iPhone or iPad” gives both routes (checked on 11 October 2026).

Steps on Android

1. Open getpdfs.app/pdf-to-word in Chrome, or Samsung Internet, Firefox or the browser your phone came with.
2. Tap Choose files and pick the PDF from Downloads, Recent, Drive or the folder WhatsApp saves to.
3. Tap Convert to Word, then Download file.
4. Open it from Chrome’s menu, Downloads, or from your phone’s Files app, in the Download folder.

Where the .docx goes, and what opens it

Some things to know about each:

• Word app: opens the .docx as it is: Word’s heading styles, lists, tables and pictures all come through, because they are ordinary Word content.
• Google Docs app: Google’s help page “Work with Office files” (checked on 11 October 2026) lists .docx among the files Docs opens and edits, with instructions for Android and iPhone. Opening it there means the file goes to your Google Drive, on Google’s servers.
• iCloud Drive: with iCloud Drive on, the Downloads folder syncs to Apple’s cloud. For a file that should stay on the phone, save it to On My iPhone instead.
• Your laptop: long edits are easier on a keyboard. Converting on the phone and finishing on the laptop is a good split.

Very big files: the memory on the phone is the limit

There is no size cap on getPDF, but there is a device limit. A browser tab gets a slice of the phone’s memory, and the converter keeps to a budget inside it: 70 % of what the browser reports, or 1.5 GB when the browser does not say (Safari does not), and never more than 1.8 GB. Opening a PDF reserves about twice its size, so with a 1.5 GB budget a PDF of up to about 750 MB passes the check.

If a file does not fit, the converter stops before it starts and says why. For a 900 MB file on a 1.5 GB budget: “Opening this file needs about 1.8 GB; with what is already open that is 1.8 GB, and this browser has about 1.5 GB to work with. Close other documents or try a smaller file.” It does not fail halfway with a broken file.

What helps with a big document:

1. Convert only the pages you need. Open Extract pages, type the pages in Pages (“The pages to take, as 2, 5-7, 9-”), tap Extract, then convert the smaller PDF. For a 300-page report where you need chapter 4, that is the better job anyway.
2. Leave pictures out. Set Pictures to “left out”. A document of photos or scanned pages otherwise carries every picture into the .docx, so the Word file is about as big as the PDF and slow to open in a phone app.
3. Close other tabs, then try again.

Extracting needs the file to open too, so a PDF that is refused for its size is a job for a laptop.

Scans on a phone

A PDF from a scanner app is a picture of a page with no text inside. Converted as it is, each page comes out as a picture, and the result says: “probably scanned, so those pages come out as pictures. Run OCR PDF first to get editable text.” Run OCR PDF on the phone first, then convert the result with Pictures “left out”. OCR fetches its reader (about 1.5 MB) and your language (0.7 to 3 MB) the first time.

The honest part

• Same converter, same trade as on a laptop. You get flowing, editable text with headings, lists, tables and pictures, not a copy of the layout: fonts become Calibri, columns become 1 flow. Convert a PDF to Word you can edit shows what comes through.
• Typing long edits on a phone is still slow. For a 1-paragraph change, editing the PDF on your phone is quicker than converting, and the layout stays as it was. For a few lines of text, retyping may beat converting.
• Nothing is uploaded on a phone either. After 1 conversion with a connection, switch on aeroplane mode and convert another file: it works, because the phone does the job. Converting offline explains the check.