PDF to HWP Converter
Turn a PDF into an HWP document you can open and edit in Hancom Hangul, the word processor used across Korean government, schools and many companies. Paragraphs, tables and pictures are rebuilt as real Hangul content rather than a picture of the page.
Document Converter
or drop PDF, DOC, DOCX … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
150 DPI turns an A4 page into about 1240 × 1754 px. Use 300 for printing.
Convert the whole file or only some pages or slides (PDF and presentation input).
Pages or slides to convert, e.g. 1-3, 5, 8-10.
UTF-8 works for every language. Choose UTF-8 with BOM if Excel or Notepad on Windows shows garbled characters; legacy encodings only for old software.
LF for macOS, Linux and code editors; CRLF for older Windows programs such as classic Notepad.
Comma is standard. Use semicolon for Excel in countries that write decimals with a comma (Germany, France, Brazil).
Excel input with several sheets: convert all of them (one section or file per sheet) or only the first.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the PDF
Add up to 20 PDFs at once, each as large as 95 MB. Scanned pages are recognized automatically with OCR scanned pages.
- 2
Keep the layout setting
Convert to is set to HWP (Hangul) and Formatting to Keep all, which matches fonts, spacing and table borders as closely as HWP allows. Use Page range if you need only the form pages.
- 3
Convert and open in Hangul
Press Convert to HWP (Hangul) and open the .hwp file in Hancom Office Hangul, or in the free Hancom Office Viewer if you only need to check it.
Upload the PDF, keep Convert to on HWP (Hangul) and you receive an .hwp file whose text, tables and images can be edited in Hancom Hangul, with scanned pages recognized as text.
Who needs a PDF turned into HWP
Hangul first shipped in 1989, and the company behind it, Hancom, was founded the following year. In the decades since, HWP became the default document format of Korean public administration and education, the way DOCX is elsewhere. Application forms, school notices and internal reports are written in it, and many offices expect work to come back in the same format.
The trouble is that documents often travel as PDF. A school posts its admission form as a PDF, an agency publishes last year's report only in print-ready form, a foreign partner sends a contract that now needs a Korean edit. Retyping a ten-page form in Hangul takes an afternoon; converting gives you a starting file with the text and tables already in place.
The conversion works in the other direction too. If an HWP file reaches you and you do not use Hangul, HWP to DOCX opens it up for Word, Google Docs and Pages, and HWP to PDF makes a read-only copy for printing.
HWP, HWPX and the formats around them
| from ↓ · to → | HWP | DOCX | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PDF to HWP: yes | PDF to DOCX: yes | – PDF to PDF: no | |
| HWP | – HWP to HWP: no | HWP to DOCX: yes | HWP to PDF: yes |
| HWPX | HWPX to HWP: yes | HWPX to DOCX: yes | HWPX to PDF: yes |
| DOCX | DOCX to HWP: yes | – DOCX to DOCX: no | DOCX to PDF: yes |
Portable Document Format
PDF was created by Adobe in 1993 and became the open ISO 32000 standard in 2008. It fixes text, fonts, images and layout so a document looks the same on every screen and printer. PDFs can contain forms, signatures, links, attachments and searchable text, and the PDF/A variant is used for long-term archiving. The fixed layout makes PDFs hard to edit, and scanned PDFs contain only images unless OCR is applied. Every browser and operating system can open them.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 1993 · Adobe
HWP
Hangul Word Processor document
HWP is the document format of Hangul (Hancom Office), a word processor developed by Hancom in South Korea since 1989. It is the standard for Korean government agencies, schools and many companies, and it handles Korean typography and complex forms well. Outside Korea it is rarely supported: Microsoft Word, Google Docs and most viewers cannot open it without a converter or Hancom's free viewer. Hancom has published the format specification, and a newer XML-based variant is called HWPX.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 1989 · Hancom
PDFs go to HWP when a Korean school, public office or company expects an editable Hangul file back: a notice or application form distributed only as PDF, a past report that needs updating, or a translation delivered into a Korean template.
Getting a clean HWP from a scanned or form-heavy PDF
Convert only the pages you edit
Use Page range, for example 2-4, so attachments and cover pages do not end up in the HWP you have to submit.
Check fonts before layout
Open the HWP and look at the font list first. Replacing a missing font usually fixes line breaks and table widths in one step.
Proofread recognized text
OCR is reliable on clean printed pages but not on stamps, low-contrast scans or handwriting. Read numbers, dates and names twice.
Text-based PDFs, the kind saved directly from Hangul, Word or a browser, give the best result because the characters are already stored as text. Scans give a good result when the page is straight and sharp; a scan made with a phone camera in poor light is worth redoing first. The guide on scanning documents to PDF covers what makes a scan readable.
PDF to HWP: common questions
What is the difference between HWP and HWPX?
HWP is Hancom's binary format; HWPX is the newer XML-based package defined by the Korean standard KS X 6101, built the same way as DOCX: a ZIP of XML files. Current versions of Hangul open both, and older Hangul versions only read HWP, so HWP is the safer target for a file you send to someone else.
Can I open the converted HWP without buying Hancom Office?
Hancom offers a free viewer for reading and printing HWP files. Editing needs Hangul itself. If the person receiving the file does not use Hangul at all, send them DOCX from HWP to DOCX instead.
Why do the Korean fonts look different after converting?
A PDF often embeds only the characters it uses from a font, and the HWP file refers to fonts by name. When a font from the PDF is not installed on the computer opening the HWP, Hangul substitutes another one, which shifts line breaks. Installing the original font or picking a standard Hangul font fixes it.
Will form tables from a government PDF stay editable?
Tables are rebuilt as Hangul tables, so you can type into the cells instead of drawing text boxes over a picture. Forms with many merged cells deserve a check, because a PDF draws the lines without recording which cells were joined.
Is a scanned PDF converted too?
Yes. Pages that are only images go through OCR scanned pages, so the HWP contains text you can edit and search. Stamps, signatures and handwriting stay pictures; proofread names and numbers before submitting.