Downloading as PDF or DOCX

PDF is free on every plan, with no limit on how many you download. DOCX is Premium.

A download takes a few seconds. The status pill under the preview reads Exporting PDF or Exporting DOCX while it builds.

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Where the buttons are

There are two places to download from, and both offer the same two formats.

In the builder, open the Options dropdown next to your resume name. Download PDF and Download DOCX sit below the save actions.

From your resume list, open a resume's download panel. It slides in from the right with a live preview, a Rename action, Edit Resume, and a Download button. The chevron beside it opens the format menu with Download PDF and Download DOCX.

Resume cards on the list page carry both actions directly as well.

Why DOCX is Premium

PDF is what most applications ask for and what every ATS handles. It is free and always will be.

DOCX is for the cases where you need a file somebody can edit: a posting that asks for Word specifically, a recruiter who wants to add their letterhead, or a quick change made offline without opening the builder.

On a free plan the DOCX row is still visible, with a lock icon and a Premium badge, and selecting it opens the upgrade dialog rather than failing on you.

The other reason DOCX might not be there

There is a second condition, separate from your plan. DOCX export is only available for smart resumes, meaning resumes stored as sections rather than as one block of text.

If you have an older Classic resume, stored as plain text, the DOCX option is hidden entirely, on any plan. Converting it with Convert to Smart Resume makes DOCX available. See Base resumes and job-tailored resumes.

So there are two questions, and they have different answers: is DOCX available for this resume, and is DOCX unlocked on your plan.

What the PDF is

Your PDF is rendered by a real browser engine from the same HTML the preview uses, so the preview is an exact proof of the output. Fonts are embedded, and the text is real selectable text, never an image.

Page breaks are the one thing that can differ. The PDF is handed over unpaginated and the browser breaks it, which produces cleaner breaks than pre-cutting the pages, but can land a break a line away from where the on screen page grid shows it. Section titles and headings are kept with the content underneath them either way.

If PDF generation fails, you get PDF generation failed. Try again. rather than a broken file. It has 30 seconds to finish, which is far more than it needs.

What the DOCX is

A real Word document, built section by section rather than converted from a web page. Bullets are real Word list formatting, not typed bullet characters, so they survive editing. Paper size and margins come from your saved layout settings.

It is built to match the preview closely, including your per-section list formatting, and it goes to some length to stay readable in Apple Pages as well as Word.

Check these two things in a DOCX before you send it

Two things are worth a glance in the Word file, and both are on the fix list:

1. Dates on your current role. The Word export reads the end date directly rather than honoring the Current Position switch, so a role the builder shows as ending in Present can print an end date instead.
2. Some newer fields are missing on some templates. Education location and start date, entry links, and project location do not render in the DOCX on every template. Classic and Minimal are the most complete.

Inline formatting carries over as bold, italic, underline, line breaks, and links. Anything more exotic that arrived with a paste is flattened to plain text, and a numbered list inside an entry summary comes out unnumbered.

If a file has to be perfect and you do not need it editable, send the PDF.

File names

Your download is named after your resume, so Product Manager Resume.pdf. Rename the resume and the file name follows, which matters more than it sounds when a recruiter is looking at 200 attachments called resume.pdf.

If the Word option is missing

There are two separate reasons it can be unavailable. See Why can't I download my resume as a Word file?.